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bp  liJtlliam  Eoscnr  Oapcr 


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ITALICA 


ITALICA 


STUDIES  IN  ITALIAN  LIFE  AND   LETTERS 


BY 

WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 

HI 

MEMBER  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 
CAVALIERE  DELL'   ORPINE  DELLA  CORONA  »'   ITALIA 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

Ojc  ixifarrs'ttrc  press1,  Camfirttrgc 
1908 


T  S"  3 


COPYRIGHT  1908  BY  WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 
ALL   RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  April  iqo8 


^lemoriam 

HARRISON  OTIS  APTHORP 


PREFACE 

IN  gathering  into  a  volume  these  bye- 
products  of  the  past  ten  or  twelve  years,  I 
am  not  unmindful  of  their  fugitive  charac- 
ter. But  even  fugitives  may  be  message- 
bearers.  And  there  are  some  subjects  which 
must  be  treated  swiftly  or  not  at  all,  if  the 
passing  aspect  is  to  be  caught  with  the  fresh- 
ness, vividness,  and  bias  which  belong  to  it. 

Several  of  the  following  papers  contain 
information  about  contemporary  Italians  and 
the  recent  conditions  of  Italy  that  may  not 
be  easily  accessible  elsewhere  to  readers  in 
English.  Others  record  friendships,  personal 
or  literary.  Others,  again,  spring  out  of  en- 
thusiasms, still  unquenched,  or  were  inspired 
by  some  feature  of  that  Enchanted  Land, 
whose  beauty  is  inexhaustible  and  whose 
boundless  interests  touch,  and  will  always 
touch,  men  and  women  who  perceive  the 
deepest  concerns  of  the  human  soul. 

As  a  painter  takes  into  account  the  place 
where  his  picture  is  to  hang,  so  I  observed 
carefully,  in  preparing  several  of  these  papers, 


viii  PREFACE 

the  special  purpose  or  the  limits  set  for  each. 
Thus,  the  essay  on  Senator  Fogazzaro  was 
intended  literally  as  an  introduction  of  him 
to  American  readers,  and  not  as  an  elaborate 
critical  analysis  of  his  work.  So,  too,  the 
studies  of  Italy  in  1903  and  in  1907  aim  at 
setting  forth  the  usually  neglected  side — the 
side  of  progress  and  of  hope  —  in  the  condi- 
tion of  the  country  and  of  its  people.  These 
studies,  I  may  add,  written  after  patient  in- 
quiry, represent,  in  solution,  not  merely  my 
own  investigations,  but  views  stored  up  dur- 
ing many  talks  with  some  of  the  persons, 
scattered  from  Turin  to  Naples,  whose  opin- 
ions carry  the  greatest  weight  among  their 
countrymen,  and  who  are  regarded  as  the 
spokesmen  of  their  respective  causes. 

For  permission  to  reprint  the  essays  in 
this  volume,  I  have  to  thank  Messrs.  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons,  and  the  proprietors  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  the  Century  Magazine, 
Lippincott's  Magazine,  the  North  Ameri- 
can Review,  the  World's  Work,  the  Boston 
Transcript,  and  the  Nation. 

W.  R.  T. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS 
January  4,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE   ....      1 
VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS      ...        29 

MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY 61 

DANTE  IN  AMERICA 75 

GIORDANO    BRUNO'S    "EXPULSION    OF  THE  BEAST 

TRIUMPHANT" 99 

COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO  ....  141 

LEOPARDI'S  HOME 159 

THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 173 

THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS  .        .        .      197 
LUIGI  CHIALA     .         .         .         .        .        .        .        .  231 

DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 243 

CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL    ....  285 

ITALY  IN  1907 305 

GIOSUE  CARDUCCI  ......  347 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE1 


SENATOR  FOGAZZARO,  in  "The  Saint,"  has 
confirmed  the  impression  of  his  five-and- 
twenty  years'  career  as  a  novelist,  and,  thanks 
to  the  extraordinary  power  and  pertinence  of 
this  crowning  work,  he  has  suddenly  become 
an  international  celebrity.  The  myopic  censors 
of  the  Index  have  assured  the  widest  circu- 
lation of  this  book  by  condemning  it  as  heret- 
ical. In  the  few  months  since  its  publication 
it  has  been  read  by  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Italians  ;  it  has  appeared  in  French  trans- 
lation in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  and 
in  German  in  the  Hochland ;  and  it  has 
been  the  storm-centre  of  religious  and  liter- 
ary debate.  Now  it  will  be  sought  by  a  still 
wider  circle,  eager  to  see  what  the  doctrines 
are,  written  by  the  leading  Catholic  layman 
in  Italy,  at  which  the  Papal  advisers  have 

1  Introduction  to  the  English  translation  of  The  Saint. 
Reprinted  by  permission  of  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
North  American  Review,  August,  1905. 


4        FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

taken  fright.  Time  was  when  it  was  the 
books  of  the  avowed  enemies  of  the  Church 
—  of  some  mocking  Voltaire,  of  some  learned 
Renan,  of  some  impassioned  Michelet — which 
they  thrust  on  the  Index  ;  now  they  pillory 
the  Catholic  layman  with  the  largest  follow- 
ing in  Italy,  one  who  has  never  wavered  in 
his  devotion  to  the  Church.  Whatever  the 
political  result  of  their  action  may  be,  they 
have  made  the  fortune  of  the  book  they  hoped 
to  suppress ;  and  this  is  good,  for  "  The 
Saint "  is  a  real  addition  to  Italian  literature. 
Lovers  of  Italy  have  regretted  that  for- 
eigners should  judge  her  contemporary  ideals 
and  literary  achievements  by  the  brilliant 
but  lubricious  and  degenerate  books  of  Ga- 
briele  d'Annunzio.  Such  books,  the  products 
of  disease  no  matter  what  language  they  may 
be  written  in,  quickly  penetrate  from  country 
to  country.  Like  epidemics  they  sweep  up 
and  down  the  world,  requiring  no  passports, 
respecting  no  frontiers,  while  benefits  travel 
slowly  from  people  to  people,  and  often  lose 
much  in  the  passage.  D'Annunzio,  speaking 
the  universal  language,  —  Sin,  —  has  been 
accepted  as  the  typical  Italian  by  foreigners 
who  know  Carducci  merely  as  a  name,  and 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE        5 

have  perhaps  never  heard  of  Fogazzaro.  Yet 
it  is  in  these  men  that  the  better  genius  of 
modern  Italy  has  recently  expressed  itself. 
Carducci's  international  reputation  as  the 
foremost  living  poet  in  recent  Europe  and 
a  literary  critic  of  the  first  class  gains  slowly, 
but  its  future  is  secure.  Borne  by  the  wider 
circulating  medium  of  fiction,  Fogazzaro's 
name  is  a  household  word  in  thousands  of 
Italian  families,  and  he  combines  in  his  genius 
so  many  rare  and  important  strands  that  the 
durability  of  his  literary  renown  cannot  be 
questioned. 

H 

Antonio  Fogazzaro,  the  most  eminent  Ital- 
ian novelist  since  Manzoni,  was  born  at 
Vicenza  on  March  25,  1842.  He  was  happy 
in  his  parents,  his  father,  Mariano  Fogaz- 
zaro, being  a  man  of  refined  tastes  and 
sound  learning,  while  his  mother,  Teresa 
Barrera,  united  feminine  sweetness  with  wit 
and  a  warm  heart.  From  childhood  they  in- 
fluenced all  sides  of  his  nature,  and  when 
the  proper  time  came  they  put  him  in  charge 
of  a  wise  tutor,  Professor  Zanella,  who  seems 
to  have  divined  his  pupil's  talents  and  the 


6        FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

best  way  to  cultivate  them.  Young  Fogazzaro, 
having  completed  his  course  in  the  classics, 
went  on  to  the  study  of  the  law,  which  he 
pursued  first  in  the  University  of  Padua  and 
then  at  Turin,  where  his  father  had  taken 
up  a  voluntary  exile.  For  Vicenza,  during 
the  forties  and  fifties,  lay  under  Austrian 
subjection,  and  any  Italian  who  desired  to 
breathe  freely  in  Italy  had  to  seek  the  liberal 
air  of  Piedmont. 

Fogazzaro  received  his  diploma  in  due 
season,  and  began  to  practise  as  advocate, 
but  in  that  casual  way  common  to  young 
men  who  know  that  their  real  leader  is  not 
Themis  but  Apollo.  Erelong  he  abandoned 
the  bar  and  devoted  himself  with  equal  en- 
thusiasm to  music  and  poetry,  for  both  of 
which  he  had  unusual  aptitude.  Down  to  1881 
he  printed  chiefly  volumes  of  verse  which 
gave  him  a  genuine  if  not  popular  reputa- 
tion. In  that  year  he  brought  out  his  first 
romance,  "  Malombra,"  and  from  time  to  time 
during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century  he  has 
followed  it  with  "Daniele  Cortis,"  "II 
Mistero  del  Poeta,"  "Piccolo  Mondo  Antico," 
"Piccolo  Mondo  Moderno,"  and  finally,  in 
the  autumn  of  1905,  "  II  Santo."  This  list 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE        7 

by  no  means  exhausts  his  productivity,  for 
he  has  worked  in  many  fields,  but  it  includes 
the  books  by  which,  gradually  at  first,  and 
with  triumphant  strides  of  late,  he  has  come 
into  great  fame  in  Italy  and  has  risen  into 
the  small  group  of  living  authors  who  write 
for  a  cosmopolitan  public. 

For  many  years  past  Signer  Fogazzaro  has 
dwelt  in  his  native  Vicenza,  the  most  hon- 
ored of  her  citizens,  round  whom  has  grown 
up  a  band  of  eager  disciples,  who  look  to 
him  for  guidance  not  merely  in  matters  in- 
tellectual or  esthetic,  but  in  the  conduct  of 
life.  He  has  conceived  of  the  career  of  the 
man  of  letters  as  a  great  opportunity,  not  as 
a  mere  trade.  Nothing  could  show  better  his 
high  seriousness  than  his  waiting  until  the 
age  of  thirty-nine  before  publishing  his  first 
novel,  unless  it  be  the  restraint  which  led 
him,  after  having  embarked  on  the  career  of 
novelist,  to  devote  four  or  five  years  on  the 
average  to  his  studies  in  fiction.  So  his  books 
are  ripe,  the  fruits  of  a  deliberate  and  rich 
nature,  and  not  the  windfalls  of  a  mere  liter- 
ary trick.  And  now,  at  a  little  more  than 
threescore  years,  the  publication  of  "The 
Saint "  confirms  all  his  previous  work,  and 


8        FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

entitles  him  to  rank  among  the  few  literary 
masters  of  the  time. 

in 

Many  elements  in  "The  Saint"  testify  to 
its  importance ;  but  these  would  not  make  it 
a  work  of  art.  And  after  all  it  is  as  a  work 
of  art  that  it  first  appeals  to  readers,  who 
may  care  little  for  its  religious  purport.  It  is 
a  great  novel  —  so  great,  that,  after  living 
with  its  characters,  we  cease  to  regard  it  as 
a  novel  at  all.  It  keeps  our  suspense  on  the 
stretch  through  nearly  five  hundred  pages, — 
Will  the  Saint  triumph  ?  Will  love  victori- 
ously claim  its  own?  We  hurry  on,  at  the 
first  reading,  for  the  solution ;  then  we  go 
back  and  discover  in  it  another  world  of  pro- 
found interest.  That  is  one  of  the  true  signs 
of  a  masterpiece. 

In  English  we  have  only  "  John  Inglesant" 
and  "Robert  Elsmere"  to  compare  it  with  ; 
but  such  a  comparison,  though  obviously 
imperfect,  shows  at  once  how  easily  "  The 
Saint "  surpasses  them  both,  not  merely  by 
the  greater  significance  of  its  central  theme, 
but  by  its  subtler  psychology,  its  wider  hori- 
zon, its  more  various  contacts  with  life. 


FOGAZZARO  AND   HIS  MASTERPIECE        9 

Benedetto,  the  Saint,  is  a  new  character  in 
fiction,  a  mingling  of  St.  Francis  and  Dr. 
Dollinger,  a  man  of  to-day  in  intelligence,  a 
medieval  in  faith.  Nothing  could  be  finer 
than  the  way  in  which  Signer  Fogazzaro 
depicts  his  zeal,  his  ecstasies,  his  visions,  his 
depressions,  his  doubts ;  shows  the  physical 
and  mental  reactions ;  gives  us,  in  a  word,  a 
study  in  religious  morbid  psychology  —  for 
say  what  we  will,  such  abnormalities  are 
morbid — without  rival  in  fiction.  We  follow 
Benedetto's  spiritual  fortunes  with  as  much 
eagerness  as  if  they  were  a  love-story. 

And  then  there  is  the  love-story.  Where 
shall  one  turn  to  find  another  like  it  ?  Jeanne 
seldom  appears  in  the  foreground,  but  we 
feel  from  first  to  last  the  magnetism  of  her 
presence.  There  is  always  the  possibility  that 
at  sight  or  thought  of  her,  Benedetto  may 
be  swept  back  from  his  ascetic  vows  to  the 
life  of  passion.  Their  first  meeting  in  the 
monastery  chapel  is  a  masterpiece  of  dramatic 
climax,  and  Benedetto's  temptation  in  her 
carriage,  after  the  feverish  interview  with  the 
cabinet  officer,  is  a  marvel  of  psychological 
subtlety.  Both  scenes  illustrate  Signer  Fogaz- 
zaro's  power  to  achieve  the  highest  artistic 


10      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

results  without  exaggeration.  This  natural- 
ness is  the  more  remarkable  because  the  char- 
acter of  a  saint  is  unnatural  according  to  our 
modern  point  of  view.  We  have  a  healthy 
distrust  of  ascetics,  whose  anxiety  over  their 
soul's  condition  we  properly  regard  as  a  form 
of  egotism ;  and  we  know  how  easily  the  unco' 
guid  become  prigs.  Fogazzaro's  hero  is 
neither  an  egotist  of  the  ordinary  cloister 
variety,  nor  a  prig.  That  our  sympathy  goes 
out  to  Jeanne  and  not  to  him  shows  that  we 
instinctively  resent  the  sacrifice  of  the  deep- 
est human  cravings  to  sacerdotal  prescriptions. 
The  highest  ideal  of  holiness  which  medievals 
could  conceive  does  not  satisfy  us. 

Why  did  Signer  Fogazzaro  in  choosing  his 
hero  revert  to  that  outworn  type  ?  He  sees 
very  clearly  how  many  of  the  Catholic  prac- 
tices are  what  he  calls  "  ossified  organisms." 
Why  did  he  set  up  a  lay  monk  as  a  model 
for  twentieth-century  Christians  who  long 
to  devote  their  lives  to  uplifting  their  fellow 
men?  Did  he  not  note  the  artificiality  of 
asceticism  —  the  waste  of  energy  that  comes 
with  fasts,  with  mortification  of  the  flesh, 
and  with  morbidly  pious  excitement  ?  When 
asked  these  questions  by  his  followers  he 


FOGAZZARO   AND   HIS   MASTERPIECE      11 

replied  that  he  did  not  mean  to  preach  asceti- 
cism as  a  rule  for  all ;  but  that  in  individual 
cases,  like  Benedetto's,  for  instance,  it  was 
a  psychological  necessity.  Herein  Signer 
Fogazzaro  certainly  discloses  his  profound 
knowledge  of  the  Italian  heart  —  of  that  heart 
from  which  in  its  early  medieval  vigor  sprang 
the  Roman  religion,  with  its  message  of  renun- 
ciation. Even  the  Renaissance,  and  the  subse- 
quent period  of  skepticism,  have  not  blotted 
out  those  tendencies  that  date  back  more  than 
a  thousand  years ;  so  that  to-day,  if  an  Italian 
is  engulfed  in  a  passion  of  self -sacrifice,  he  nat- 
urally thinks  first  of  asceticism  as  the  method 
for  attaining  it.  Among  Northern  races  a 
similar  religious  experience  does  not  suggest 
hair  shirts  and  debilitating  pious  orgies  (ex- 
cept among  Puseyites  and  similar  survivals 
from  a  different  epoch) ;  it  suggests  active 
work,  like  that  of  General  Booth  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army ;  or  social  service  without  any 
necessary  church  inspiration  or  direction. 

No  one  can  gainsay,  however,  the  superb 
artistic  effects  which  Signer  Fogazzaro  attains 
through  his  Saint's  varied  experiences.  He 
causes  to  pass  before  you  all  classes  of  society, 
—  from  the  poorest  peasant  of  the  Subiaco 


12      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

hills,  to  duchesses  and  the  Pope  himself,  — 
some  incredulous,  some  mocking,  some  de- 
vout, some  hesitating,  some  spellbound,  in 
the  presence  of  a  holy  man.  The  fashionable 
ladies  wish  to  take  him  up  and  make  a  lion 
of  him ;  the  superstitious  kiss  the  hem  of  his 
garment  and  believe  that  he  can  work  mir- 
acles, or,  in  a  sudden  revulsion,  they  jeer  at 
him  and  drive  him  away  with  stones.  And 
what  a  panorama  of  ecclesiastical  life  in  Italy  ! 
What  a  collection  of  priests  and  monks  and 
prelates,  and  with  what  inevitableness  one 
after  another  turns  the  cold  shoulder  on  the 
volunteer  who  dares  to  assert  that  the  test  of 
religion  is  conduct !  There  is  an  air  of  mystery, 
of  intrigue,  of  secret  messages  passing  to  and 
fro  —  the  atmosphere  of  craft  which  has  hung 
round  the  ecclesiastical  institution  so  many, 
many  centuries.  Few  scenes  in  modern  romance 
can  match  Benedetto's  interview  with  the  Pope 
—  the  pathetic  figure  who,  you  feel,  is  in  sad 
truth  a  prisoner,  not  of  the  Italian  Govern- 
ment, but  of  the  crafty,  able,  remorseless 
cabal  of  cardinals  who  surround  him,  dog 
him  with  eavesdroppers,  edit  his  briefs,  check 
his  benign  impulses,  and  effectually  prevent 
the  truth  from  penetrating  to  his  lonely  study. 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      13 

Benedetto's  appeal  to  the  Pope  to  heal  the 
four  wounds  from  which  the  Church  is  lan- 
guishing is  a  model  of  impassioned  argument. 
The  four  wounds,  be  it  noted,  are  the  "  spirit 
of  falsehood,"  "  the  spirit  of  clerical  domina- 
tion," "  the  spirit  of  avarice,"  and  "  the  spirit 
of  immobility."  The  Pope  replies  in  a  tone  of 
resignation  ;  he  does  not  disguise  his  power- 
lessness ;  he  hopes  to  meet  Benedetto  again 
—  in  heaven ! 

IV 

"  The  Saint "  may  be  considered  under 
many  aspects  —  indeed,  the  critics,  in  their 
efforts  to  classify  it,  have  already  fallen  out 
over  its  real  character.  Some  regard  it  as  a 
thinly  disguised  statement  of  a  creed ;  others, 
as  a  novel  pure  and  simple ;  others,  as  a 
campaign  document  (in  the  broadest  sense) ; 
others,  as  no  novel  at  all  but  a  dramatic  sort 
of  confession.  The  Jesuits  have  had  it  put  on 
the  Index;  the  Christian  Democrats  have 
accepted  it  as  their  gospel :  yet  Jesuits  and 
Christian  Democrats  both  profess  to  be  Cath- 
olics. Such  a  divergence  of  opinion  proves 
conclusively  that  the  book  possesses  unusual 
power  and  that  it  is  many-sided. 


14      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

Instead  of  pitching  upon  one  of  these  views 
as  right  and  declaring  all  the  rest  to  be  wrong, 
it  is  more  profitable  to  try  to  discover  in  the 
book  itself  what  grounds  each  class  of  critics 
finds  to  justify  its  particular  and  exclusive 
verdict. 

On  the  face  of  it  what  does  the  book  say  ? 
This  is  what  it  says :  That  Piero  Maironi, 
a  man  of  the  world,  cultivated  far  beyond  his 
kind,  after  having  had  a  vehement  love-affair 
is  stricken  with  remorse,  "  experiences  relig- 
ion," becomes  penitent,  is  filled  with  a  strange 
zeal  —  an  ineffable  comfort  —  and  devotes 
himself,  body,  heart,  and  soul  to  the  worship 
of  God  and  the  succor  of  his  fellow  men.  As 
Benedetto,  the  lay  brother,  he  serves  the 
peasant  populations  among  the  Sabine  Hills, 
or  moves  on  his  errands  of  hope  and  mercy 
among  the  poor  of  Rome.  Everybody  re- 
cognizes him  as  a  holy  man  —  "a  saint." 
Perhaps,  if  he  had  restricted  himself  to  tak- 
ing only  soup  or  simple  medicines  to  the 
hungry  and  sick,  he  would  have  been  un- 
molested in  his  philanthropy ;  but  after  his 
conversion  he  had  devoured  the  Scriptures 
and  studied  the  books  of  the  Fathers,  until 
the  spirit  of  the  early,  simple,  un theological 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      15 

Church  had  poured  into  him.  It  brought 
a  message  the  truth  of  which  so  stirred  him 
that  he  could  not  rest  until  he  imparted  it  to 
his  fellows.  He  preached  righteousness, — the 
supremacy  of  conduct  over  ritual,  —  love  as 
the  test  and  goal  of  life ;  but  always  with  full 
acknowledgment  of  Mother  Church  as  the 
way  of  salvation.  Indeed,  he  seems  neither  to 
doubt  the  impregnability  of  the  foundations 
of  Christianity,  nor  the  validity  of  the  Petrine 
corner-stone ;  taking  these  for  granted,  he 
aims  to  live  the  Christian  life  in  every  act,  in 
every  thought.  The  superstructure  —  the 
practices  of  the  Catholic  Church  to-day,  the 
failures  and  sins  of  clerical  society,  the  rigid 
ecclesiasticism  —  these  he  must,  in  loyalty  to 
fundamental  truths,  criticise,  and  if  need 
be,  condemn,  where  they  interfere  with  the 
exercise  of  pure  religion.  But  Benedetto  en- 
gages very  little  in  controversy ;  his  method 
is  to  glorify  the  good,  sure  that  the  good 
requires  only  to  be  revealed  in  all  its  beauty 
and  charm  in  order  to  draw  irresistibly  to 
itself  souls  that,  for  lack  of  vision,  have 
been  pursuing  the  mediocre  or  the  bad. 

Yet  these  utterances,  so  natural  to  Bene- 
detto, awaken  the  suspicion  of  his  superiors, 


16      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

who  —  we  cannot  say  without  cause  —  scent 
heresy  in  them.  Good  works,  righteous  con- 
duct —  what  are  these  in  comparison  with 
blind  subscription  to  orthodox  formulas? 
Benedetto  is  persecuted  not  by  an  obviously 
brutal  or  sanguinary  persecution,  —  although 
it  might  have  come  to  that  except  for  a  cata- 
strophe of  another  sort,  —  but  by  the  very 
finesse  of  persecution.  The  sagacious  politi- 
cians of  the  Vatican,  inheritors  of  the  accum- 
ulated craft  of  a  thousand  years,  know  too 
much  to  break  a  butterfly  on  a  wheel,  to  make 
a  martyr  of  an  inconvenient  person  whom 
they  can  be  rid  of  quietly.  Therein  lies  the 
tragedy  of  Benedetto's  experience,  so  far  at 
least  as  we  regard  him,  or  as  he  thought 
himself,  an  instrument  for  the  regeneration 
of  the  Church. 

On  the  face  of  it,  therefore,  "  The  Saint " 
is  the  story  of  a  man  with  a  passion  for  doing 
good  in  the  most  direct  and  human  way,  who 
found  the  Church  in  which  he  believed,  the 
Church  which  existed  ostensibly  to  do  good 
according  to  the  direct  and  human  ways  of 
Jesus  Christ,  thwarting  him  at  every  step. 
Here  is  a  conflict,  let  us  remark  in  passing, 
worthy  to  be  the  theme  of  a  great  tragedy. 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      17 

Does  not  Antigone  rest  on  a  similar  conflict 
between  Antigone's  simple  human  way  of 
showing  her  sisterly  affection  and  the  rigid 
formalism  of  the  orthodoxy  of  her  day  ? 


Or,  look  next  at  "  The  Saint "  as  a  cam- 
paign document,  the  aspect  under  which  it 
has  been  most  hotly  discussed  in  Italy.  It 
has  been  accepted  as  the  platform,  or  even 
the  gospel  of  the  Christian  Democrats.  Who 
are  they  ?  They  are  a  body  of  the  younger 
generation  of  Italians,  among  them  being  a 
considerable  number  of  religious,  who  yearn 
to  put  into  practice  the  concrete  exhortations 
of  the  Evangelists.  They  are  really  carried 
forward  by  that  ethical  wave  which  has  swept 
over  Western  Europe  and  America  during 
the  past  generation,  and  has  resulted  in 
"slumming,"  in  practical  social  service,  in 
all  kinds  of  efforts  to  improve  the  material 
and  moral  condition  of  the  poor,  quite  irre- 
spective of  sectarian  or  even  of  Christian  in- 
itiative. This  great  movement  began,  indeed, 
outside  of  the  churches,  among1  men  and 

'  O 

women  who  felt  grievously  the  misery  of  their 
fellow  creatures  and  their  own  obligation  to  do 


18      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

what  they  could  to  relieve  it.  From  them,  it 
has  reached  the  churches,  and,  last  of  all,  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Italy.  No  doubt  the  spread 
of  Socialism,  with  its  superficial  resemblance 
to  some  of  the  features  of  primitive  Christian- 
ity, has  somewhat  modified  the  character  of 
this  ethical  movement;  in  fact,  the  Italian 
Christian  Democrats  have  been  confounded,  by 
persons  with  only  a  blurred  sense  of  outlines, 
with  the  Socialists  themselves.  Whatever  they 
may  become,  however,  they  now  profess  views 
in  regard  to  property  which  separate  them 
by  an  unbridgable  chasm  from  the  Socialists. 

In  their  zeal  for  their  fellow  men,  and  es- 
pecially for  the  poor  and  downtrodden  classes, 
they  find  the  old  agencies  of  charity  insuffi- 
cient. To  visit  the  sick,  to  comfort  the  dying, 
to  dole  out  soup  at  the  convent  gate,  is  well, 
but  it  offers  no  remedy  for  the  causes  behind 
poverty  and  behind  remediable  suffering. 
Only  through  better  laws,  strictly  adminis- 
tered, can  effectual  help  come.  So  the  Chris- 
tian Democrats  deemed  it  indispensable  that 
they  should  be  free  to  influence  legislation. 

At  this  point,  however,  the  stubborn  pro- 
hibition of  the  Vatican  confronted  them. 
Since  1870,  when  the  Italians  entered  Rome 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      19 

and  established  there  the  capital  of  United 
Italy,  the  Vatican  had  forbidden  faithful 
Catholics  to  take  part,  either  as  electors  or  as 
candidates,  in  any  of  the  national  elections, 
the  fiction  being  that,  were  they  to  go  to  the 
polls  or  to  be  elected  to  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  they  would  thereby  recognize  the 
Royal  Government  which  had  destroyed 
the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope.  Then  what 
would  become  of  that  other  fiction  —  the 
Pope's  prisonership  in  the  Vatican  —  which 
was  to  prove  for  thirty  years  the  best-paying 
asset  among  the  Papal  investments  ?  So  long 
as  the  Curia  maintained  an  irreconcilable 
attitude  towards  the  Kingdom,  it  could  count 
on  kindling  by  irritation  the  sympathy  and 
zeal  of  Catholics  all  over  the  world.  In  Italy 
itself  many  devout  Catholics  had  long  pro- 
tested that,  as  it  was  through  the  acquisition 
of  temporal  power  that  the  Church  had  be- 
come worldly  and  corrupt,  so  through  the  loss 
of  temporal  power  it  would  regain  its  spiritual 
health  and  efficiency.  They  urged  that  the 
Holy  Father  could  perform  his  religious  func- 
tions best  if  he  were  not  involved  in  political 
intrigues  and  governmental  perplexities.  No 
one  would  assert  that  Jesus  could  have  better 


20      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

fulfilled  his  mission  if  he  had  been  King 
of  Judea ;  why,  then,  should  the  Pope,  the 
Vicar  of  Jesus,  require  worldly  pomp  and 
power  that  his  Master  disdained? 

Neither  Pius  IX  nor  Leo  XIII,  however, 
was  open  to  arguments  of  this  kind.  Incident- 
ally, it  was  clear  that  if  Catholics  as  such 
were  kept  away  from  the  polls,  nobody  could 
say  precisely  just  how  many  they  numbered. 
The  Vatican  constantly  asserted  that  its  ad- 
herents were  in  a  majority —  a  claim  which,  if 
true,  meant  that  the  Kingdom  of  Italy  rested 
on  a  very  precarious  basis.  But  other  Catholics 
sincerely  deplored  the  harm  which  the  irre- 
concilable attitude  of  the  Curia  caused  to  re- 
ligion. They  regretted  to  see  an  affair  purely 
political  treated  as  religious ;  to  have  the  belief 
in  the  Pope's  temporal  power  virtually  set  up 
as  a  part  of  their  creed.  The  Lord's  work  was 
waiting  to  be  done;  yet  they  who  ought  to 
be  foremost  in  it  were  handicapped.  Other 
agencies  had  stepped  in  ahead  of  them.  The 
Socialists  were  making  converts  by  myriads ; 
skeptics  and  cynics  were  sowing  hatred  not 
of  the  Church  merely  but  of  all  religion.  It 
was  time  to  abandon  "the  prisoner  of  the 
Vatican "  humbug,  time  to  permit  zealous 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      21 

Catholics,  whose  orthodoxy  no  one  could  ques- 
tion, to  serve  God  and  their  fellow  men  accord- 
ing to  the  needs  and  methods  of  the  present 
age. 

At  last,  in  the  autumn  of  1905,  the  new 
Pope,  Pius  X,  gave  the  faithful  tacit  permis- 
sion, if  he  did  not  officially  command  them, 
to  take  part  in  the  elections.  Various  motives 
were  assigned  for  this  change  of  front.  Did 
even  the  Ultramontanes  realize  that,  since 
France  had  repealed  the  Concordat,  they 
could  find  their  best  support  in  Italy?  Or 
were  they  driven  by  the  instinct  of  self-pre- 
servation to  accept  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment as  a  bulwark  against  the  incoming  tide 
of  Anarchism,  Socialism,  and  the  other  sub- 
versive forces?  The  Church  is  the  most  con- 
servative element  in  Christendom  ;  in  a  new 
upheaval  it  will  surely  rally  to  the  side  of  any 
other  element  which  promises  to  save  society 
from  chaos.  These  motives  have  been  cited 
to  explain  the  recent  action  of  the  Holy  See, 
but  there  were  high-minded  Catholics  who 
liked  to  think  that  the  controlling  reason  was 
religious  —  that  the  Pope  and  his  counselors 
had  at  last  been  persuaded  that  the  old  policy 
of  abstention  wrought  irreparable  harm  to 


22      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

the  religious  life  of  millions  of  the  faithful  in 
Italy. 

However  this  may  be,  Senator  Fogazzaro's 
book,  filled  with  the  Liberal  and  Christian 
spirit,  has  been  eagerly  caught  up  as  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  Christian  Democrats,  and 
indeed  of  all  intelligent  Catholics  in  Italy 
who  have  always  held  that  religion  and  patri- 
otism are  not  incompatible,  and  that  the 
Church  has  most  injured  itself  in  prolonging 
the  antagonism.  In  this  respect,  "  The  Saint," 
like  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  and  similar  books 
which  crystallize  an  entire  series  of  ideals 
or  sum  up  a  crisis,  leaped  immediately  into 
importance,  and  seems  certain  to  enjoy,  for 
a  long  time  to  come,  the  prestige  that  crowns 
such  works.  Putting  it  on  the  Index  could 
only  add  to  its  power. 

But  readers  who  imagine  that  this  aspect 
measures  the  significance  of  "  The  Saint  " 
have  read  the  surface  only.  The  probability 
of  restoring  friendly  relations  between  Church 
and  State  is  a  matter  of  concern  to  everybody 
in  Italy  :  but  of  even  greater  concern  are  the 
implications  which  issue  from  Signer  Fogaz- 
zaro's thought.  He  is  an  evolutionist ;  he 
respects  the  higher  criticism ;  he  knows  that 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      23 

religions,  like  states  and  secular  institutions, 
have  their  birth  and  growth  and  inevitable 
decay.  So  Catholicism  must  take  its  course 
in  the  human  circuit,  and  expect  sooner  or 
later  to  pass  away.  This  would  be  the  natural 
deduction  to  draw  from  the  premise  of  evolu- 
tion. Signer  Fogazzaro,  however,  does  not 
draw  it.  He  conceives  that  Catholicism  con- 
tains a  final  deposit  of  truth  which  can  neither 
be  superseded,  wasted,  nor  destroyed. 

"My  friend,"  says  Benedetto,  "you  say, 
'We  have  reposed  in  the  shade  of  this  tree 
but  now  its  bark  cracks  and  dries ;  the  tree 
will  die  ;  let  us  go  in  search  of  other  shade.' 
The  tree  will  not  die.  If  you  had  ears,  you 
would  hear  the  movement  of  the  new  bark 
forming,  which  will  have  its  period  of  life, 
will  crack,  will  dry  in  its  turn,  because  another 
bark  shah1  replace  it.  The  tree  does  not  die, 
the  tree  grows." 

Through  this  parable,  Signer  Fogazzaro 
reveals  his  attitude,  which,  it  appears,  does 
not  differ  from  that  proposed  by  many 
Anglicans  and  other  Protestants  towards 
their  respective  churches.  Herein  his  Saint 
takes  on  the  largest  significance.  He  is  a  re- 
ligious who  constantly  praises  Reason,  and 


24      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

urges  his  hearers  to  trust  Reason  ;  but  who, 
at  a  given  moment,  falls  back  on  Faith, 
cleaves  to  Faith,  insists  that  Faith  alone  brings 
its  own  warrant.  Hence  arise  paradoxes,  hence 
contradictions  which  elude  a  reasonable  solu- 
tion. For  instance,  in  one  discourse  Benedetto 
says :  "  The  Catholic  Church,  which  proclaims 
itself  the  fountain  of  truth,  opposes  to-day  the 
search  for  Truth  when  it  is  carried  on  on  its 
own  foundations,  on  the  holy  books,  on  the 
dogmas,  on  its  asserted  infallibility.  For  us 
this  means  that  it  has  no  longer  faith  in  itself. 
The  Catholic  Church  which  proclaims  itself 
the  minister  of  Life,  to-day  shackles  and 
stifles  whatever  lives  youthfully  within  it, 
and  to-day  it  props  itself  on  all  its  decadent 
and  antiquated  usages."  Yet  a  little  farther 
on  he  exclaims  :  "  But  what  sort  of  faith  is 
yours,  if  you  talk  of  leaving  the  Church  be- 
cause certain  antiquated  doctrines  of  its  heads, 
certain  decrees  of  the  Roman  congregations, 
certain  ways  in  a  pontiff's  government  offend 
you  ?  What  sort  of  sons  are  you  who  talk  of 
renouncing  your  mother  because  she  wears 
a  garment  which  does  not  please  you  ?  Is  the 
mother's  heart  changed  by  a  garment? 
When,  bowed  over  her,  weeping,  you  tell 


FOGAZZARO   AND  HIS   MASTERPIECE      25 

your  infirmities  to  Christ  and  Christ  heals 
you,  do  you  think  about  the  authenticity  of 
a  passage  in  St.  John,  about  the  real  author 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  or  about  the  two 
Isaiahs  ?  When  you  commune  with  Christ  in 
the  sacrament,  do  the  decrees  of  the  Index 
or  the  Holy  Office  disturb  you  ?  When,  giv- 
ing yourself  up  to  Mother  Church,  you  enter 
the  shadows  of  death,  is  the  peace  she  breathes 
in  you  less  sweet  because  a  Pope  is  opposed 
to  Christian  Democracy  ?  " 

So  far,  therefore,  as  Fogazzaro  is  the 
spokesman  of  loyal  yet  intelligent  Catholics, 
he  shows  that  among  them  also  the  process 
of  theological  solution  has  been  going  on. 
Like  Protestants  who  still  profess  creeds 
which  they  do  not  believe,  these  intelligent 
Catholics  have  to  resort  to  strange  devices — 
to  devices  which  to  a  looker-on  appear  un- 
candid  if  not  insincere  —  in  order  to  patch  up 
a  truce  between  their  reason  and  their  faith. 
This  insincerity  is  the  blight  of  the  present 
age.  It  is  far  more  serious  than  indifferent- 
ism,  or  than  the  open  scoffing  of  the  eight- 
eenth-century philosophers.  So  long  as  it  lasts, 
no  deep,  general  religious  regeneration  will 
be  possible.  Be  it  remarked,  however,  that 


26      FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE 

Signer  Fogazzaro  himself  is  unaware  of  his 
ambiguous  position ;  being  still  many  removes 
from  Jowett,  the  typical  British  Mr.  Facing- 
both-Ways  of  the  epoch. 

VI 

In  conclusion,  we  go  back  to  the  book 
as  a  work  of  art,  meaning  by  art  not  mere 
artifice,  but  that  power  which  takes  the  fleet- 
ing facts  of  life  and  endues  them  with  per- 
manence, by  revealing  their  deeper  purports, 
their  order,  and  their  beauty.  In  this  sense, 
Signor  Fogazzaro  is  a  great  artist.  He  has 
the  gift  of  the  masters  which  enables  him  to 
rise  without  effort  to  the  level  of  the  tragic 
crises.  He  has  also  a  vein  of  humor,  without 
which  such  a  theme  as  his  could  hardly  be 
successfully  handled.  And  although  there  is, 
by  measure,  much  serious  talk,  yet  so  skilfully 
does  he  bring  in  minor  characters,  with  their 
transient  sidelights,  that  the  total  impression 
is  that  of  a  book  in  which  much  happens.  No 
Realist  could  exceed  the  fidelity  with  which 
Signor  Fogazzaro  outlines  a  landscape,  or 
fixes  a  passing  scene ;  yet  being  an  Idealist 
through  and  through,  he  has  produced  a  mas- 
terpiece in  which  the  imagination  is  sovereign. 


FOGAZZARO  AND  HIS  MASTERPIECE      27 

Such  a  book,  sprung  from  "no  vain  or 
shallow  thought,"  holding  in  solution  the 
hopes  of  many  earnest  souls,  spreading  before 
us  the  mighty  spiritual  conflict  between 
Medievalism  still  triumphant  and  the  young 
undaunted  Powers  of  Light,  showing  us  with 
wonderful  lifelikeness  the  tragedy  of  man's 
baffled  endeavor  to  establish  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  earth,  and  of  woman's  unquench- 
able love,  is  a  great  fact  in  the  world-literature 
of  our  time. 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND 
PAGEANTS 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND 
PAGEANTS l 

IN  our  grandfathers'  day  few  Yankee  sea- 
captains  returned  home  without  bringing  back 
some  curiosity — a  Buddhist  idol,  a  South- 
Sea  Islander's  weapons,  a  rare  piece  of  Chinese 
porcelain  or  silk — to  remind  them  of  their 
voyages.  So,  from  the  ninth  to  the  thirteenth 
century,  every  thrifty  Venetian  who  traded 
to  the  Levant  tucked  away  in  his  cargo  the 
leg  or  arm,  or  at  least  a  knuckle,  of  some 
saint,  with  which  he  enriched  his  parish  church 
and  assured  to  himself  and  his  family  a  safe 
passage  to  heaven.  Computing  by  the  sum  of 
such  relics  as  remain,  the  whole  number  which 
passed  from  the  East  into  Western  Europe 
must  have  been  enormous.  In  the  earlier 
times  it  was  possible  to  secure  at  reasonable 
rates  the  entire  body  of  a  first-class  saint. 
But  with  the  Crusades  the  stream  of  pur- 
chasers increased  a  thousand-fold,  and  the 
canny  Greek,  who  did  a  thriving  business  in 
these  commodities,  might  get  as  high  a  price 

1  Lippincott's  Magazine,  November,  1904. 


32     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

for  a  few  hairs  or  the  thumb-nail  of  a  third- 
century  martyr  as  his  grandfather  got  for  an 
entire  apostle.  The  bodies  of  the  favorite  and 
most  potent  saints  having  long  before  been 
disposed  of,  dealers  filled  further  orders  more 
parsimoniously,  doling  out  fragments  and 
small  bones,  unconcernedly  duplicating  and 
multiplying  until,  if  all  their  wares  could  be 
united,  we  should  find  that  John  the  Baptist 
had  more  arms  than  Briareus  and  Mary  Mag- 
dalene more  feet  than  a  centipede. 

But  we  shall  miss  a  true  understanding  of 
that  age  unless  we  check  our  reason  and  sense 
of  humor  and  try  to  see  the  relic-worshiping 
medievals  (whose  progeny  still  survives)  in  a 
sympathetic  light.  Relics  were  an  indispensa- 
ble element  in  their  religious  practices.  Every 
city  must  have  its  supernatural  patron,  every 
church  its  treasure  latent  with  miraculous  po- 
tentialities. To  possess  such  a  treasure  became 
one  of  the  chief  objects  of  zeal,  and  so  keen 
was  the  competition  that  the  rules  of  common 
honesty  had  no  influence  over  the  relic-hunt- 
ers. Body-snatching,  against  which  a  preju- 
dice has  recently  arisen,  was  the  noblest  of 
professions,  in  which  kings,  knights,  and 
prelates  zealously  engaged.  To  rob  a  Saracen 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS   AND   PAGEANTS     33 

of  a  piece  of  the  True  Cross  was  an  act  of 
the  highest  virtue ;  to  steal  a  saint's  mummy 
from  a  schismatic  Greek  was  not  ghoulish  but 
devout. 

In  this  business  the  Venetians  displayed 
their  characteristic  combination  of  piety  and 
practicalness.  Their  commercial  relations 
gave  them  so  great  an  advantage  in  the  traffic 
of  relics  that  they  must  have  made  many  for- 
tunes in  it.  For  a  relic  had  its  market  value, 
which  those  sharp  traders  knew  how  to  ap- 
praise as  exactly  as  if  they  were  quoting  the 
price  of  corn.  Thus  the  Crown  of  Thorns  was 
pawned  for  seven  thousand  ducats,  and  such 
religious  assets  were  deemed  a  legitimate  part 
of  a  conqueror's  plunder.  As  the  medieval 
was  credulous,  he  never  questioned  the  genu- 
ineness of  his  holy  spoils.  An  autograph  cer- 
tificate, reading  "  This  is  my  head,"  signed 
by  John  the  Baptist  and  witnessed  by  a  dozen 
scribes,  was  not  needed  to  convince  folk  that 
already  believed  with  an  absolute  faith  and 
had  neither  the  desire  nor  the  knowledge  to 
make  critical  tests.  By  theft  or  purchase  they 
eagerly  got  possession  of  the  pious  frauds 
which  the  Greeks  manufactured ;  and  if  those 
relics  necessarily  encouraged  a  gross  and  ma- 


M     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

terialistic  worship,  they  proved  in  many  cases 
so  lucrative  an  investment  that  the  city  or  the 
church  -which  was  so  fortunate  as  to  own  a 
first-class  relic  was  enriched  by  it  for  centuries. 

Venice  was  already  unique  in  site,  in  gov- 
ernment, and  in  independence  before  she  se- 
cured in  St.  Mark  such  a  protector  as  no  other 
nation  had,  and  not  merely  a  patron  saint, 
but  the  head  of  her  Church,  one  as  author- 
itative as  Peter,  under  whose  leadership  she 
successfully  resisted  the  domination  of  the 
Petrine  Pope.  St.  Theodore,  one  of  the  war- 
rior saints  of  Byzantine  Christians,  was  her 
earliest  patron,  and  his  statue,  which  repre- 
sents him  treading  under  foot  a  crocodile- 
dragon,  still  stands  on  one  of  the  columns  in 
the  Piazzetta.  Only  at  the  beginning  of  the 
ninth  century  did  the  Venetians  supersede 
him  by  St.  Mark,  who,  being  an  Evangelist, 
outshone  Theodore  in  glory  and  matched  the 
ambition  of  the  growing  Republic. 

Rustico  of  Torcello,  Buono  of  Malamocco 
and  Stauracio,  merchants  who  had  gone  to 
Alexandria  on  a  Venetian  ship,  felt  a  great 
desire  to  carry  the  body  of  St.  Mark  back 
to  Venice.  Accordingly,  they  won  over  the 
guardian  of  his  sepulchre,  took  the  body, 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     35 

and  put  it  in  a  basket,  which  they  covered 
with  cabbages  and  pork,  and  then  hurried  to 
their  ship.  "  And  because  they  doubted  the 
pagans,"  says  the  chronicler  Da  Canale,  "they 
laid  the  holy  body  between  two  quarters  of 
pork  and  fastened  it  up  on  the  ship's  mast : 
and  this  they  did  because  the  pagans  would 
not  touch  pork." 

They  sailed  homeward,  and  after  escaping 
shipwreck  through  the  miraculous  interven- 
tion of  the  Saint,  they  reached  Venice  on  the 
last  day  of  January,  827.  Not  long  afterward 
Mark  became  the  patron  of  the  Republic. 
The  myth-making  instinct  of  the  time  in- 
vented a  prophecy  to  show  that  he  had  been 
predestined  to  watch  over  the  Venetians.  A 
vineyard  near  the  later  church  of  St.  Francis 
was  pointed  out  as  the  very  spot  on  which  the 
Saint,  overtaken  by  storm  on  his  voyage  from 
Aquileia,  had  landed,  and  had  met  Christ, 
who  said  to  him,  "  Peace  to  thee,  Mark,  my 
Evangelist."  Venice  adopted  that  phrase  as 
her  motto,  and  believed  implicitly  in  the  truth 
of  the  incident. 

Mark  was  no  slothful  saint,  content  to  re- 
ceive the  adoration  of  his  flock  while  he  lolled 
invisible  in  celestial  ease.  He  was  a  doer,  a 


36     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

helper,  a  benefactor,  unceasingly  showering 
his  favors  on  his  chosen  flock.  Through 
him  the  Venetians  prospered  in  their  State 
and  in  their  commerce :  he  was  their  great 
ally,  insuring  victory  in  war.  He  not  only 
allowed  them  to  deduce  his  devotion  to  them 
through  these  general  results,  but  he  often 
vouchsafed  to  them  special  proof  of  his  more 
than  paternal  care.  After  his  body  had  been 
brought  from  Alexandria  it  was  put  in  the 
church,  "not  where  every  one  knew,"  says  the 
chronicler,  "  but  very  privately  in  a  certain 
place.  Then  it  happened  that  they  who  knew 
the  place  where  it  was  put  died  without  mak- 
ing it  known  to  others.  Whereat  the  Venetians 
grieved  sorely,  and  they  prayed  the  Patriarch 
and  Bishops  that  they  should  take  means  to 
discover  where  the  body  of  Monsignor  St. 
Mark  was  resting.  Then  Monsignor  the 
Patriarch  caused  every  one  to  fast  three  days 
on  bread  and  water,  and  thereafter  they 
formed  a  procession,  and  whilst  the  Patri- 
arch was  chanting  mass  a  stone  dropped  out 
of  the  column  where  Monsignor  St.  Mark 
was  reposing.  Then  the  Venetians  saw  the 
precious  body  of  the  Evangelist." 

Two  other  legends  of  St.  Mark  became 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS  37 

embedded  in  the  hearts  of  all  Venetians, 
legends  which  will  be  familiar  to  every  vis- 
itor in  Venice  as  long  as  the  splendid  can- 
vases on  which  the  masters  of  the  sixteenth 
century  painted  them  shall  last. 

The  first,  immortalized  by  Tintoret,  shows 
the  Saint  as  the  protector  of  his  humblest 
votary.  A  slave  belonging  to  a  nobleman  of 
Provence  used  constantly  to  pray  to  St.  Mark. 
His  owner  forbade  him :  the  slave  persisted, 
and  was  condemned  to  be  tortured.  In  the 
picture,  the  executioner  has  bound  him  and 
is  just  about  to  apply  the  torture,  when 
suddenly  out  of  heaven  St.  Mark  falls  like 
a  thunderbolt  upon  the  scene  and  frees  his 
worshiper. 

In  the  second  story  the  unfailing  devotion 
of  the  Saint  to  the  whole  city  is  symbolized 
with  all  the  definiteness  of  fact.  On  Febru- 
ary 25,  1340,  when  a  great  storm  threatened 
to  inundate  Venice,  a  fisherman  was  bidden 
by  a  stranger  to  row  from  the  Piazzetta  to  the 
open  sea.  On  the  way  they  took  in  two  other 
passengers,  and  then,  beyond  the  Lido,  they 
saw  a  ship  laden  with  demons  hurrying  to- 
wards Venice.  The  stranger  exorcised  these 
demons  and  they  vanished;  the  tempest  slack- 


38     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

ened,  the  waves  grew  calm.  When  the  stranger 
returned  to  the  quay  he  gave  the  fisherman 
a  ring  and  revealed  to  him  that  he  was  St. 
Mark  and  his  companions  were  St.  George 
and  St.  Nicholas.  Giorgione  has  painted  the 
fisherman  rowing  the  three  Saints  out  to  the 
demon  ship,  and  Paris  Bordone  has  painted 
him  taking  the  ring  to  the  Doge  and  telling 
his  story. 

Of  the  many  legends  about  other  saints  I 
•will  recall  here  only  one  which,  for  its  loveli- 
ness, stays  long  in  the  memory.  The  Blessed 
Countess  Tagliapietra,  as  a  little  girl,  had  a 
great  passion  for  going  to  church.  Her  father 
remonstrated,  —  possibly  he  saw  that  the 
religious  ecstasies  harmed  his  high-strung 
daughter,  —  but  he  could  not  persuade  her 
to  be  moderate.  Accordingly,  he  bade  the 
gondoliers  at  the  traghetto  not  to  ferry  her 
across  the  Grand  Canal.  When  she  came,  as 
usual,  to  take  passage  for  the  Church  of  San 
Vio,  where  she  worshiped,  and  found  no  boat, 
without  hesitation  she  walked  bravely  on  to 
the  water,  which  miraculously  bore  her  up 
till  she  reached  the  other  side. 

Dreams  played  an  important  part  in  the 
earlier  centuries  at  Venice,  as  they  have 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     39 

everywhere,  when  people  have  believed  that 
supernatural  communications  come  most  easily 
during  sleep.  The  church  of  Murano  orig- 
inated in  this  way.  The  Virgin,  appearing 
to  Otho  the  Great  in  his  sleep,  pointed  out  to 
him  a  meadow  at  Murano  carpeted  with 
scarlet  lilies,  and  desired  him  to  build  there 
a  church  in  her  honor.  More  wonderful  still 
was  the  vision  vouchsafed  to  the  priest  Mauro, 
soon  after  the  founding  of  Torcello  (A.  D. 
568).  He  saw  God  the  Father,  Christ,  the 
Virgin,  and  several  saints,  and  was  bidden  to 
build  no  fewer  than  five  churches.  John  the 
Baptist  placed  a  bishop's  ring  on  his  finger 
and  a  plan  of  a  church  in  his  hand,  and  when 
he  awoke  both  ring  and  plan  were  there.  No 
wonder  that  church-building  flourished  in  an 
age  when  a  single  priest  in  one  night's  dream 
had  warrant  for  erecting  five  churches  !  And 
what  might  not  be  expected  of  architecture 
for  which  in  its  beginnings  the  highest  celes- 
tial personages  —  too  wise  to  trust  imperfect 
human  architects  —  themselves  furnished  the 
designs ! 

We  must  think  of  the  medieval  Venetian, 
therefore,  as  living  in  a  world  of  legend  and 
miracle  and  mystery.  In  what  concerns  his 


40     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

daily  affairs  he  is  shrewd  and  prudent,  as 
hard-headed  as  the  proverbial  Yankee  in 
driving  a  bargain,  and  as  tenacious  as  a 
Scotchman  in  carrying  out  whatever  he  un- 
dertakes. He  has  also  another  self,  which  is 
in  constant  communication  with  what  he  be- 
lieves to  be  the  supernatural,  a  self  in  which 
faith  and  credulity  are  one.  But  a  passion 
for  beauty  is  common  to  both  his  natures. 
He  delights  in  festivals  and  pageants,  through 
which  his  imagination,  remarkable  beyond  all 
others  for  grace  and  color,  expresses  itself. 

Let  us  witness  some  of  the  feasts  which 
became  a  part  of  the  life  of  every  Venetian. 
Many  of  them  are  described  by  Da  Canale, 
that  picturesque  chronicler,  clear  of  eye  and 
quaint  of  expression,  who  wrote  about  the 
year  1275.  This  is  his  account  of  the  way 
in  which  the  translation  of  St.  Mark's  body 
to  Venice  was  celebrated  every  year  : 

"  On  the  vigil  of  Monsignor  St.  Mark  there 
comes  by  water  a  company  of  young  men,  and 
when  they  have  arrived  at  the  Palace  they 
land  and  £ive  their  banners  to  little  children, 

o 

and  go  two  by  two  in  front  of  the  Church  of 
Monsignor  St.  Mark.  And  behind  them  come 
trumpeters,  and  also  youths  bearing  silver 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     41 

plates  laden  with  confections,  and  after  these 
come  silver  phials  full  of  wine  and  gold  and 
silver  cups  borne  by  more  youths;  and  then 
come  the  priests  chanting,  clothed  in  pluvials 
of  gold  samite.  And  they  go  one  after  another 
to  St.  Mary  who  is  called  Formosa  (the  Beau- 
tiful), where  they  find  ladies  and  damsels  in 
great  number,  and  they  give  them  confections 
and  wine  to  drink ;  and  to  the  prelates  and 
the  clerics  they  give  abundantly." 

The  ceremonies  which  Da  Canale  next  de- 
scribes did  not  originate  in  honor  of  the  Pa- 
tron Saint.  In  the  earliest  times  it  was  the 
custom  for  marriageable  girls,  each  bringing 
a  little  coffer  containing  her  dower,  to  as- 
semble in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  at  Olivolo 
on  the  second  of  February  every  year,  and 
thither  went  the  young  bachelors  and  chose 
each  his  bride.  The  custom,  reminding  one  of 
the  Asiatic  traffic  in  female  slaves,  was  doubt- 
less not  so  savage  as  it  seems ;  for  probably 
the  young  men  and  maidens  had  agreed  be- 
forehand how  they  should  pair,  or  their  par- 
ents had  done  this  for  them,  so  that  the  festi- 
val really  marked  the  formal  betrothal.  But 
it  happened,  in  944,  that  while  the  brides  were 
in  church,  a  band  of  Narentine  pirates,  row- 


42     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

ing  swiftly  from  ambush,  landed  at  Olivolo, 
rushed  to  the  church,  seized  the  young  women 
before  help  could  arrive,  and  rowed  off  with 
them  at  full  speed.  Not  until  reaching  Caorle, 
some  forty  miles  away,  did  they  stop.  There, 
as  they  were  apportioning  the  damsels  and 
dowers,  they  were  overtaken  by  a  rescuing 
party  of  Venetians,  who  slew  the  pirates  and 
brought  home  the  brides. 

For  many  centuries  the  anniversary  of  this 
event  was  celebrated  with  increasing  splendor. 
The  Guild  of  the  Trunk-makers,  who  had 
lent  their  boats  to  the  rescuers,  obtained  as 
a  reward  that  the  Doge  should  honor  their 
church,  Santa  Maria  Formosa,  with  a  visit  on 
the  day  of  the  festival.  The  curate  of  the 
church  offered  him,  in  behalf  of  the  guild, 
oranges,  muscatel,  and  two  hats  of  gilded 
straw.  The  substitution  of  twelve  dolls, 
dressed  in  bridal  clothes  and  carried  in  state 
in  the  procession,  did  not  satisfy  the  people, 
and  twelve  maids  were  accordingly  chosen 
each  year  to  be  the  special  Brides  of  St.  Mark, 
under  the  protection  of  the  Doge.  The  festi- 
val, which  originally  coincided  with  the  cele- 
bration of  the  translation  of  St.  Mark's  body, 
came,  by  the  addition  of  one  ceremony  after 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS  43 

another,  to  last  a  whole  week,  during  which, 
when  the  state  functions  were  over,  there  fol- 
lowed regattas,  dances,  concerts,  feasting,  and 
perhaps  medieval  mimes.  Each  ward,  or  even 
each  parish,  had  its  own  festivity.  The  Maries 
were  chosen  by  popular  vote,  and  so  the  emu- 
lation in  expense  grew  to  be  so  excessive  that 
the  government  was  obliged  to  restrict  the 
number  of  brides  to  four,  to  set  a  limit  on 
the  cost  of  their  apparel,  and  to  raise  by 
special  tax  the  sum  needed  for  the  week's 
gala. 

Of  military  pageants  we  should  have  much 
to  say  were  we  not  restricting  our  survey  to 
those  in  which  the  peculiar  genius  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  State  expressed  itself.  The  depart- 
ure of  the  great  fleet  on  some  naval  expedi- 
tion, when,  after  the  Doge  and  his  admirals 
had  heard  mass  at  San  Pietro,  he  received 
from  the  hands  of  the  Patriarch  the  gonfalon 
of  St.  Mark,  or  the  fleet's  return,  with  many 
prizes  and  prisoners  and  much  spoil,  were  oc- 
casions which  every  Venetian  had  witnessed. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  the  Doge  came  not  back, 
and  more  than  once  but  a  remnant  of  the 
fleet,  shattered  and  vanquished,  crept  home 
through  the  Lido  channel :  and  then,  instead 


44     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

of  rejoicing,  there  was  wrath  for  those  who 
had  dared  to  return  alive  and  lamentation 
for  the  dead.  But  more  often  the  word  was 
victory,  and  the  homing  of  the  fleet  meant 
jubilation. 

The  modern  traveler  finds  hard  to  realize 
the  presence  of  horses  in  old  Venice:  yet 
horses  there  were,  and  mules  and  asses,  and 
in  considerable  numbers.  The  members  of 
the  Great  Council  used  to  come  on  horseback 
to  the  meetings  and  to  fasten  the  animals  to 
trees  until  the  sitting  was  over.  The  bell 
which  rang  to  summon  them  was  long  known 
as  the  Muletta,  and  Trottiera  was  the  name 
of  their  road.  Stranger  still,  St.  Mark's  Place 

O  9 

saw  many  a  tournament  —  as  when,  in  1272, 
six  young  men  of  Friuli  visited  Venice  and 
challenged  the  Venetians  to  joust.  Doge  Tie- 
polo  caused  lists  to  be  staked  out,  and  for 
three  days  the  tourney  lasted,  the  young 
knights  of  Venice  testing  their  skill  with  the 
Frulani,  the  Doge  and  his  retinue  watching 
and  applauding  from  the  Piazzetta  balcony  of 
the  Ducal  Palace,  and  crowds  of  citizens  and 
ladies  filling  the  benches  and  windows  and 
loggie  round  about.  A  century  later  (1361) 
Lorenzo  Celsi,  who  had  the  finest  stud  in 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS  45 

Venice,  was  elected  Doge,  and  when  the  Duke 
of  Austria  paid  him  a  state  visit,  Doge  and 
Duke  and  their  attendants  went  mounted 
through  the  city.  The  enclosed  space  outside 
of  the  Church  of  the  Mendicants  long  served 
as  an  arena,  near  which  seventy  horses  were 
stabled  for  the  jousters  who  used  it.  As  the 
population  increased,  the  Great  Council  passed 
ordinances  to  prevent  riding  through  the 
most  frequented  streets,  the  broadest  of  which 
was  all  too  narrow  even  for  passers  on  foot. 
But  the  gradual  replacing  of  the  old  wooden 
bridges  by  stone,  with  higher  arches  and  steps 
at  either  approach,  caused  the  use  of  four- 
footed  beasts  to  be  given  up,  except  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  city  or  on  the  lidi. 

Out  of  the  paying  of  tribute  many  minor 
customs  arose.  In  the  earliest  times,  when 
cash  was  hardly  known,  the  tribute  consisted 
either  of  necessaries  or  of  articles  on  which 
fashion  and  cupidity  set  a  high  value.  Thus 
Istria  sent  every  year  one  hundred  jars  of 
wine  in  return  for  protection  from  the  Slavic 
pirates;  and  later,  when  the  great  Orseolo 
extended  the  friendly  protectorate  of  Venice 
along  the  Dalmatian  coast,  the  island  of  Arbe 
promised  to  pay  ten  pounds  of  silk,  or,  failing 


46     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

this,  five  pounds  of  purest  gold;  Veglia,  fif- 
teen marten  and  thirty  fox  skins;  Orsero, 
forty  marten  skins;  Pola,  two  thousand 
pounds  of  oil  for  the  Church  of  St.  Mark.  To 
punish  Ulric,  the  truculent  Patriarch  of  Aqui- 
leia  in  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  he 
and  his  canons,  and  the  lords  of  Friuli  who 
had  abetted  him,  were  required  to  come  in 
disgrace  to  Venice  to  beg  for  mercy,  which  was 
granted  on  condition  that  they  and  their  suc- 
cessors should  send  as  their  proxies  twelve 
hogs  and  twelve  loaves  every  year.  On  Shrove 
Thursday  the  multitude  crowded  into  St. 
Mark's  Place  to  see  the  hogs  killed  and  to 
jeer  at  the  memory  of  the  Patriarch.  In  time 
a  bull  was  substituted  for  the  swine,  but  not 
until  1550  did  the  custom  lapse. 

In  the  earliest  times  the  towns  which 
formed  part  of  the  Venetian  commonwealth 
contributed  in  kind  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  Doge.  Livenza  supplied  twenty  cart-loads 
of  wood,  and  Heraclea  twenty-five  cart-loads, 
for  every  six  farms  within  their  limits ;  Equilo, 
on  the  other  hand,  furnished  a  marten  skin 
and  a  bushel  of  pine-nuts.  Until  1215  every 
house  in  Chioggia  sent  the  Doge  a  hen  thrice 
a  year. 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     47 

The  guilds  had  each  their  special  celebra- 
tion, accompanied  by  procession  and  festivity, 
when  they  loved  to  outdo  one  another  in  dis- 
play of  their  work  and  wealth.  Each  church 
observed  its  feast-day,  on  which  the  members 
of  the  parish  made  merry.  The  boatmen  of 
different  quarters  of  the  city  formed  clubs 
and  rowed  races;  indeed,  the  annual  regatta 
between  the  Nicolotti  and  the  Castellani 
became  one  of  the  shows  of  Venice.  Many 
ceremonies  sprang  from  historic  events.  The 
Venetian  spirit  poured  itself  out  to  make 
every  occasion  beautiful,  as  sunrise  gilds  the 
peaks  and  empurples  the  valleys,  leaving 
nothing  unglorified. 

But  of  all  the  Venetian  pageants  the  Doge 
himself  was  the  chief.  Never  elsewhere  has 
the  head  of  the  State  kept  such  dignity  and 
magnificence  as  characterized  the  Dukes  of 
Venice  for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  The  first 
Doges  were  elected,  at  least  in  form,  by  popu- 
lar vote,  but  as  time  went  on  and  the  govern- 
ment fell  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of 
a  sagacious  and  powerful  oligarchy  the  elect- 
orate narrowed,  until  finally  only  forty-one 
members  of  the  Grand  Council  had  the  choos- 
ing, by  an  intricate  process,  of  the  Doge. 


48     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

This  in  nowise  diminished  the  splendor  with 
which  each  ruler  was  greeted  by  his  subjects, 
who,  as  they  curtailed  his  power,  increased 
his  pomp.  Da  Canale,  the  entertaining  chron- 
icler who  has  told  us  so  much,  reports  as  an 
eye-witness  what  occurred  at  the  election  of 
Lorenzo  Tiepolo  in  1268. 

When  the  Forty-one  had  come  to  an  agree- 
ment the  bells  of  St.  Mark's  were  rung,  and 
from  all  parts  of  the  city  the  people  of  Venice 
flocked  to  the  Piazza  and  the  Church.  The 
forty-one  electors  mounted  the  balcony  of  the 
Church,  and  one  of  the  number  addressed 
the  multitude  and  announced  the  name  of  the 
new  Doge.  Thereupon  they  pressed  round 
him  and  bore  him  to  the  altar  of  St.  Mark, 
and  having  stripped  his  clothes  from  him 
and  put  on  his  ducal  robes,  at  that  altar  he 
took  the  oath  of  office,  and  the  gonfalon  of 
St.  Mark,  all  gold,  was  given  to  him  and  he 
received  it.  Amid  great  rejoicing,  he  went 
out  of  the  Church  and  ascended  the  staircase 
of  the  Ducal  Palace,  where  the  chaplains 
stood  on  the  steps  and  sang  the  ducal  lauds 
in  these  words :  "  Christ  conquers !  Christ 
reigns !  Christ  commands !  To  our  lord  Lo- 
renzo Tiepolo,  by  God's  grace  illustrious  Doge 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     49 

of  Venice,  Dalmatia,  and  Croatia,  and  ruler 
of  a  fourth  part  and  a  half  of  the  whole 
empire  of  Romania,  salvation,  honor,  long 
life,  and  victory !  St.  Mark,  help  thou  him !  " 
Then  the  Doge  went  into  the  Palace  and 
entered  on  his  office,  subscribing  to  a  formal 
oath;  after  which  he  appeared  at  a  loggia 
and  spoke  very  wisely  to  the  people,  and 
they  praised  him  above  all  others.  The  chap- 
lains then  went  to  Sant'  Agostino,  where  the 
Dogaressa  was,  and  sang  before  her  also 
the  ducal  lauds. 

This  informal  celebration  was  followed  by 
elaborate  festivities,  in  which  all  classes  took 
part.  On  land  there  was  a  procession  of  the 
guilds,  those  groups  of  tradesmen,  artisans, 
and  apprentices  that  had  existed  in  Venice 
from  very  early  times,  had  grown  rich  and 
skilful,  and  had  developed  each  its  internal 
government.  On  this  24th  of  July,  1268,  hav- 
ing put  on  their  richest  attire  —  each  guild 
has  its  distinctive  garb  —  they  take  their 
places  in  the  great  parade  which  winds 
through  the  narrow  streets  to  the  Piazza  and 
the  Palace. 

First  come  the  master  smiths  and  their 
apprentices  with  a  gonfalon  and  with  their 


50     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND   PAGEANTS 

heads  garlanded,  while  trumpeters  play  before 
them ;  next,  the  furriers,  in  rich  mantles  of 
ermine  and  vair  and  other  rare  furs.  They 
are  followed  by  the  dressers  of  small  skins, 
clothed  in  samite  and  taffeta  and  in  scarlet ; 
the  dressers  of  lambskins  step  next,  singing 
canzonets  to  the  Doge ;  after  them,  the  weav- 
ers, trolling  songs  and  snatches.  And  now, 
says  Da  Canale, "  the  joy  and  the  festivity  begin 
to  increase,"  for  here  are  the  tailors,  their  ten 
masters  dressed  in  white  with  vermilion  stars, 
their  coats  and  mantles  lined  with  furs,  and 
all  merrily  singing.  The  next,  crowned  with 
olive  and  bearing  olive-branches,  are  the 
woolen  manufacturers,  and  after  them  the 
makers  of  cotton  cloth,  in  fustian.  The  mak- 
ers of  quilts  and  jerkins  have  donned  new 
suits  —  white  cloaks  worked  with  fleur-de-lis 
and  each  cloak  with  a  hood  —  and  the  men 
themselves  wear  garlands  of  pearls  strung  with 
gold.  The  pageant  grows  more  splendid  — 
for  behold  the  cloth-of-gold  workers,  dressed 
in  that  fabric  themselves,  and  their  workmen 
in  purple,  with  hoods  of  gold  worked  and  dec- 
orated with  pearls  and  gold  on  their  heads. 
The  cordwainers,  who  follow,  are  equally  re- 
splendent, and  so  are  the  mercers.  Nor  will 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     51 

the  cheesemongers  be  outshone,  in  their  scar- 
let and  purple  apparel,  trimmed  with  fur,  and 
their  gold  and  pearl  ornaments.  The  vendors 
of  wild-fowl  and  the  fishmongers,  arrayed  in 
vair,  bear  fine  game  and  fish  as  an  offering 
to  the  Doge.  And  after  them  we  see  the 
company  of  the  barbers,  two  of  whom,  clad 
in  armor  and  mounted  on  richly  caparisoned 
horses,  dub  themselves  knights-errant  and 
lead  captive  four  damsels  strangely  garbed. 
Escorted  by  their  guild,  they  ride  up  the 
Palace  steps  into  the  presence  of  the  Doge, 
and  after  salutation  they  announce  that  if 
any  of  his  court  wish  to  do  combat  for  the 
damsels  they  stand  ready  to  defend  them. 
But  the  Doge  bids  them  welcome,  assuring 
them  that  no  one  shall  dispute  their  prize ; 
and  so  their  little  comedy  ends.  They  have 
scarcely  passed  on  ere  the  glassworkers 
advance,  carrying  decanters  and  bottles  and 
other  rarest  specimens  of  their  skill.  The 
comb-makers,  a  merry  crew,  bring  a  great 
cage  filled  with  divers  birds,  and  when  they 
open  the  door  the  birds  fly  out  and  away 
over  the  heads  of  the  multitude,  to  the  de- 
light of  the  little  children,  who  run  after  them. 
Other  guilds  are  still  to  follow,  but  our  chron- 


52  VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

icier  mentions  only  the  goldsmiths,  the  most 
magnificent  of  all.  The  masters  of  this  guild 
display  very  rich  clothes,  and  gold  and  silver 
ornaments,  and  jewels  of  great  price  —  "  sap- 
phires, emeralds,  diamonds,  topazes,  jacinths, 
amethysts,  rubies,  jaspers,  carbuncles"  — 
the  wealth  of  Orinuz  and  of  Ind  sparkles  as 
they  file  before  us  in  the  summer  sun. 

Each  company  is  preceded  by  trumpeters 
sounding  on  silver  trumpets  and  by  men 
playing  cymbals ;  servants  carry  large  silver 
vials  of  wine  and  golden  goblets ;  and  there 
are  captains,  who  see  that  the  lines  form 
promptly  and  march  in  order,  two  by  two. 
And  after  each  guild  has  greeted  the  Doge, 
wishing  him  long  life,  victory,  honor,  and 
salvation,  it  descends  the  ducal  staircase  and 
goes  to  the  palace  in  the  Sant'  Agostino 
quarter  to  salute  the  Dogaressa. 

But  pageants  address  the  eye  and  not  the 
ear.  Feeble  are  words  to  conjure  up  such  a 
scene  as  this,  so  varied,  so  gorgeous,  so  joc- 
und, yet  so  stately  !  Descriptions  cloy.  Hap- 
pily, whoever  has  visited  Venice  has  fed  his 
eye  on  the  paintings  where  these  things  still 
glow.  Gentile  Bellini  and  Carpaccio  worked 
before  the  pageants  had  wholly  lost  their 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS  53 

medieval  character ;  while  Veronese  and 
Tintoret,  a  century  later,  added  to  their 
representations  of  the  past  the  glory  of  the 
present.  So  slowly  did  Venice  change  her 
customs  that  the  essential  features  of  a  fes- 
tival often  persisted  during  many  hundred 
years. 

Although  descriptions  pall,  we  must  take 
at  least  one  glimpse  of  that  Venetian  festival 
which  outshone  and  outlasted  all  the  rest  — 
the  yearly  wedding  of  the  Republic  and  the 
Adriatic  on  Ascension  Day.  The  custom  orig- 
inated as  a  reminder  of  the  victorious  naval 
expedition  of  Orseolo  the  Great,  who  in  the 
year  1000  cleared  the  Dalmatian  coast  of 
pirates  and  established  the  supremacy  of 
Venice  on  the  sea.  To  mark  that  triumph, 
the  Doge  and  his  retinue  went  in  procession 
through  the  Lido  port  to  the  open  Adriatic, 
and  offered  this  supplication :  "  Grant,  0 
Lord,  that  for  us,  and  for  all  who  sail  thereon, 
the  sea  may  be  calm  and  quiet ;  this  is  our 
prayer,  Lord,  hear  us."  After  this  the  Doge 
and  his  suite  were  aspersed,  and  the  rest  of 
the  water  was  poured  into  the  sea,  while  the 
priest  chanted  the  words,  "  Purge  me  with 
hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean." 


54     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

This  ceremony,  impressive  for  its  simplicity, 
grew  to  be  impressive  for  its  splendor.  In 
1177,  when  Pope  Alexander  III  and  the 
Emperor  Barbarossa  met  at  Venice  to  settle, 
as  they  hoped,  the  immemorial  quarrel  of  the 
Papacy  and  the  Empire,  they  took  part  in 
the  celebration ;  and  then  it  was,  apparently, 
that  the  service  was  converted  into  an  es- 
pousal. The  Pope  gave  Doge  Ziani  an  anointed 
ring,  which  he  dropped  solemnly  into  the 
Adriatic  with  the  words,  "  Desponsamus  te, 
Mare"  —  "We  wed  thee,  Sea,  in  sign  of 
our  true  and  perpetual  dominion." 

From  that  time  on  the  celebration  of  "  La 
Sensa,"  or  the  Marriage  of  the  Adriatic  on 
Ascension  Day,  increased  in  stateliness,  and 
long  after  Venice  had  lost  the  sceptre  of  the 
sea  crowds  of  visitors  came  yearly  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  to  witness  that  rite,  sym- 
bolic of  her  former  supremacy.  Travelers 
and  authors  have  vied  with  each  other  in 
depicting  the  dazzling  spectacle :  the  Bucen- 
taur,  the  ducal  galley,  all  gilded,  with  its 
canopy  of  crimson  velvet;  the  gold  and 
crimson  gonfalon  of  St.  Mark;  the  forty 
long  oars,  each  manned  by  four  rowers  ;  the 
ducal  throne  fixed  on  a  great  golden  shell ; 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     55 

the  Doge,  venerable  and  grave,  clad  in  superb 
robes  ;  the  Councilors,  the  Procurators,  the 
Senators,  the  Pregadi  in  scarlet  or  royal 
purple;  the  Patriarch  and  his  prelates  in 
their  richest  vestments ;  the  foreign  ambas- 
sadors in  their  varied  magnificence ;  the 
multitudes  of  smaller  galleys,  barges,  barks, 
and  gondolas,  following  in  the  wake  of  the 
Bucentaur,  each  with  its  cargo  of  eager 
men  and  women  and  astonished  children ; 
the  unwonted  stiUness  of  the  journey  out ; 
the  solemnity  of  the  marriage  rite,  when  the 
Doge,  unattended,  from  the  stern  of  his 
barge  drops  the  ring  into  the  sea :  then  the 
sudden  taking  up  by  ten  thousand  throats 
of  his  words,  "  Desponsamus  te,  Mare " ; 
the  boundless  vivacity,  the  acclamations,  the 
triumphal  energy  of  the  return  to  the  city 
—  who  has  not  in  imagination  witnessed 
all  this,  framed  by  the  matchless  Venetian 
architecture,  and  the  opaline  waters  of  the 
Lagoon,  and  by  the  sky  of  pale  sapphire  and 
sunbeams  which  arches  above  them  ? 

Dead,  long  ago,  the  last  Doge  of  Venice ; 
dead  the  gay  multitude  which  last  attended 
him ;  the  golden  Bucentaur  is  dust ;  the 
Ducal  Palace,  St.  Mark's  Church,  nay, 


56     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND   PAGEANTS 

Venice  herself,  are  become  but  a  three  days' 
wonder  for  modern  tourists,  who  "  glance, 
and  nod,  and  bustle  by,"  a  gallery  for  the  es- 
thetic, a  haunt  to  muse  in  for  the  thoughtful 
few.  So  fades  away  the  glory  of  the  world ! 
"  And  what,"  asks  the  muser,  before  whom 
the  vision  of  this  splendor  has  flashed,  "  what 
does  it  signify  ?  Is  it  but  the  pomp,  the  un- 
rivaled pomp,  and  the  vanity  of  a  wicked 
world?  The  colors  have  fed  the  eye,  the 
pageants  have  enchanted  the  imagination  — 
is  that  all  ?  "  Ah,  no  !  Through  those  fleet- 
ing shows  Venice  embodied  qualities  which 
no  other  State  has  had  in  like  degree :  she 
revealed  to  the  world  the  meaning  of  magni- 
ficence, she  set  the  ages  an  example  in  dig- 
nity. We  have  heard  much  of  the  ceremonial 
of  Spain  —  but  ceremonial  is  not  magnificence ; 
the  mere  description  of  the  gorgeous  costumes 
of  the  Magyar  nobles  dazzle  us  —  but  cos- 
tume is  not  magnificence.  Ceremonial  may 
be  dull  —  the  Spanish  punctilio  was  stiff  be- 
yond the  verge  of  the  ludicrous;  that  is  not 
dignity.  We  cannot  associate  magnificence 
with  either  the  Germans  or  the  English.  The 
Prussians,  at  the  utmost,  can  organize  an 
imposing  military  review.  The  English  have 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     57 

never  had  the  artistic  sense,  nor  the  taste, 
•which  underlies  magnificence ;  they  have 
always  taken  their  pleasure  sadly ;  and  while 
Englishmen  may  possess  a  noble  carriage  and 
countenances  of  high-bred  dignity,  they  do 
not  group  well,  but  remain  rigidly  isolated, 
too  conscious  of  themselves  to  be  willing  to 
blend  in  masses,  which  are  the  elements  of 
a  great  pageant.  The  French  too  have  had 
little  conception  of  magnificence  —  assuredly 
they  have  manifested  no  genius  for  it.  They 
still  point  to  the  Grand  Monarque  —  that 
paltry  manikin,  with  his  full-bottomed  wig, 
his  padded  calves,  his  red-heeled  pumps  — 
and  to  his  entourage  of  titled  lackeys  as  their 
highest  type  of  dignity  and  magnificence ;  or 
they  recall  the  display  of  the  third  Napo- 
leon, which  was,  after  all,  only  tinsel  and 
millinery,  the  stuff  which  theatrical  pomps, 
performed  mechanically  after  much  drill,  are 
made  of. 

But  the  Venetians  were  magnificent  by 
nature.  This  quality  developed  in  them  just 
as  a  genius  for  music  develops  in  other  races, 
and  it  expressed  itself  in  pageants  more  and 
more  splendid  as  their  wealth  increased.  A 
dignity,  likewise  inborn,  never  forsook  them. 


58     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS 

The  Spirit  of  Beauty,  which  was  their  pe- 
culiar dower,  took  great  companies  of  men 
and  women  and  composed  them  into  moving 
pictures,  as  wonderful  in  their  way  as  are  the 
enduring  masterpieces  which  that  same  spirit 
wrought  on  canvas,  in  mosaic,  and  in  marble. 
Every  class — the  noble,  the  religious,  the 
commercial,  the  artisan,  the  plebeian  —  had 
its  place  in  the  pomps,  and  at  the  head  of 
them  all,  linked  to  all  in  this  manifestation 
of  common  interests,  was  the  Doge. 

That  Beauty  may  be  not  merely  the  orna- 
ment but  the  very  body  of  Power,  this  surely 
is  one  thing  Venice  can  teach  us.  We  mod- 
erns command  inexhaustible  reservoirs  of 
Power,  but  of  visible  Beauty,  how  slight  is 
our  understanding,  how  beggarly  our  pro- 
duct! We  look  out,  for  the  most  part,  on 
a  sepia-tinted  world;  Venice  bids  us  learn 
the  delight,  not  merely  physical,  which  color 
can  bring.  To  be  gorgeous,  but  not  barbaric  ; 
magnificent,  but  not  pompous ;  dignified, 
but  not  stiff  —  these  are  gifts  which  presup- 
pose character;  nay,  they  demand  character 
in  some  respects  of  rarer  fibre  than  that  in 
which  reside  many  of  the  virtues  which  we 
now  magnify.  Those  gifts  the  Venetians  had. 


VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND  PAGEANTS     59 

Venice  proclaimed  the  joy  of  life  —  the 
glow  of  health,  the  exhilaration  of  conquest, 
the  sweetness  of  prosperity,  the  self-reliance 
and  the  cosmic  trust  which  come  with  mas- 
tery. Was  it  not  well  that  once  in  recorded 
history  one  nation  should  dare  to  proclaim 
that  life  on  earth  is  passing  good?  There  is 
no  danger  that  races  or  men  will  be  long 
allowed  to  forget  the  transitoriness  of  their 
existence,  or  its  horrors  and  failures  and  be- 
reavements. Fate  sees  to  it  that  each  genera- 
tion shall  witness,  for  a  warning  and  a  sign, 
the  collapse  of  empire.  Time  is  busy  "  turn- 
ing old  glories  into  dreams." 

"  Restless  is  wealth,  the  nerves  of  power 

Sink  like  a  lute's  in  rain, 
The  Gods  lend  only  for  an  hour, 
And  then  take  back  again." 

But  to  transmute  wealth  and  power  into 
joy,  to  live  grandly,  as  if  the  Gods  had  not 
merely  lent  for  an  hour,  but  had  given  for 
eternity,  bespeak  great  character.  Joy  is  so 
much  rarer  than  virtue  !  so  very  rare  among 
the  powerful  and  the  very  rich ! 

Remember  too  that  the  Venetians  earned 
their  prosperity,  earned  it  against  unparalleled 
odds;  they  were  brave,  industrious,  enter- 


60     VENETIAN  LEGENDS  AND   PAGEANTS 

prising,  prudent ;  when  blessings  flowed  in 
upon  them  they  rejoiced  with  a  healthy  ex- 
uberance. "  There  is  nothing  better  for  a 
man  than  .  .  .  that  he  should  make  his  soul 
enjoy  good  in  his  labor.  This  also  I  saw, 
that  it  was  from  the  hand  of  God."  The 
Venetians  realized  that  after  a  hard-won  vic- 
tory the  triumph  is  legitimate ;  that  God  can 
be  worshiped  as  truly  by  accepting  His  gifts 
and  delighting  in  them  as  by  renouncing 
them  with  a  monkish  reluctance.  No  doubt, 
prosperity  is  the  severest  test  of  character  ;  as 
Venice  learned  when  after  many  centuries 
her  magnificence  had  been  softened  into 
luxury  and  voluptuousness,  and  her  pageants, 
though  still  superb,  were  shows  to  gratify 
her  pride  rather  than  ceremonies  born  of  her 
strength  and  joy  and  gratitude.  Nevertheless, 
five  hundred  years  elapsed  between  her  rise 
to  greatness  and  the  beginning  of  her  decline, 
and  her  waning  was  so  gradual  that  for  two 
centuries  more  she  seemed  in  outward  majesty 
almost  undiminished. 


MAZZINI'S   CENTENARY 


MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY1 

THE  wise  instinct  of  the  world  has  long  since 
admitted  Joseph  Mazzini  into  the  company 
of  its  great  men.  He  would  certainly  be  in- 
cluded, along  with  Cavour  and  Bismarck, 
Lincoln  and  Emerson,  in  any  group  of  half 
a  score  representatives  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  For  forty  years  he  embodied  the 
European  Revolution  —  a  monster  to  some, 
a  model  or  a  martyr  to  others ;  but  as  soon 
as  death  removed  him  as  a  living  menace, 
his  foes  conceded  his  eminence.  To-day,  his 
great  tract,  "The  Duties  of  Man,"  is  the 
textbook  in  ethics  in  every  Italian  public 
school.  Time  has  done  for  him  what  it  does 
for  all  rebels — it  has  stript  off  the  temporal 
and  left  the  permanent.  And  at  last  we  see 
that  —  unlike  those  rebels  who  combat  a 
special  abuse,  and  who,  when  that  abuse 
falls,  have  no  further  significance  —  Mazzini 

1  The  Nation,  June  22,  1905.  An  Italian  translation  of 
this  article,  by  the  Hon.  Ernesto  Nathan,  now  Mayor  of 
Rome,  appeared  in  the  Nuova  Antologia  for  July  1,  1907. 


64  MAZZINFS   CENTENARY 

belongs  among  the  little  band  of  world-bene- 
factors whose  rebellion  is  rooted  in  the  ever- 
lasting conflict  between  Good  and  Evil.  Thus 
there  are  two  Mazzinis  —  one  who  worked 
for  his  contemporaries,  the  other  who  worked 
for  posterity.  In  the  case  of  no  other  man  of 
equal  rank  is  it  so  necessary  to  distinguish 
clearly  between  the  two.  This  we  can  now  do 
without  fear  of  misunderstanding. 

Glance  first  at  the  temporal  Mazzini.  He 
was  born  in  Genoa,  June  22,  1805.  At  six- 
teen, the  sufferings  of  the  victims  of  a  futile 
revolt  burnt  into  his  soul.  The  vision  of  free- 
dom, and  of  its  responsibility,  haunted  him. 
"  I  felt,"  he  says,  "  that  since  we  could,  we 
ought  to  struggle  for  freedom."  Ten  years 
later  he  was  imprisoned  for  many  months, 
not  for  any  overt  act,  but  simply  because  the 
police  had  marked  him  as  a  "  thinker."  Dur- 
ing his  confinement,  he  systematized  the  prin- 
ciples to  which  he  consecrated  his  life.  He 
came  out  of  his  Savona  prison  only  to  be  ban- 
ished. At  first  from  Marseilles  and  then  from 
Switzerland  he  directed  Young  Italy,  the  so- 
ciety which  sprang  up  at  his  call  to  free  the 
Peninsula.  He  led  an  invasion  into  Savoy, 
which  collapsed  almost  without  firing  a  gun 


MAZZIXI'S  CENTENARY  65 

(1833).  He  was  ridiculed,  accused  of  betrayal, 
persecuted ;  and  at  last,  at  the  instigation  of 
foreign  governments,  Switzerland  drove  him 
out,  to  find  refuge  in  London.  There,  in 
almost  beggarly  condition,  he  carried  on  his 
revolutionary  propaganda,  terrifying  the  Con- 
tinental cabinets,  planning  fruitless  insurrec- 
tions, cheering  the  oppressed,  and  creating, 
not  in  Italy  only,  but  throughout  Europe, 
multitudes  of  disciples  who  pledged  them- 
selves to  his  ideals. 

He  could  never  cancel  the  stigma  which 
his  foes  early  branded  on  him  of  countenanc- 
ing assassination,  nor  did  he  escape  the  charge 
of  personal  cowardice.  As  to  the  first,  opin- 
ions still  differ,  and,  in  spite  of  his  own  avow- 
als and  those  of  his  intimates,  probably  they 
always  will;  but  the  charge  of  cowardice, 
based  on  his  practice  of  sending  his  followers 
on  errands  which  proved  deadly,  may  well 
be  dismissed.  He  risked  his  own  life  over  and 
over  again  on  secret  missions  to  Italy,  and 
no  man  who  bore  himself  as  Mazzini  did  dur- 
ing the  perils  of  the  Roman  Republic  in  1849, 
lacked  either  fortitude  or  courage.  Those 
brief  months  of  practical  dictatorship  tested 
his  ability  to  c?o,  and  although  he  inevitably 


66  MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY 

failed,  he  showed  both  decision  and  foresight. 
Thenceforward,  he  fell  back  on  conspiracy, 
only  to  be  more  and  more  discredited  as  his 
plots  at  Mantua,  at  Milan,  and  at  Genoa  were 
smothered  in  blood.  When  Garibaldi  freed 
the  Two  Sicilies,  Mazzini  hurried  to  Naples 
and  begged  the  hero  to  organize  his  conquest 
on  a  Republican  basis,  but  Garibaldi  for- 
tunately followed  his  own  intuitions,  which 
were  usually  much  sounder  than  the  reasons 
he  could  give  for  them.  So  far  as  Italy  was 
concerned,  Mazzini  ceased  to  be  an  important 
political  factor  after  1860,  and,  during  the 
last  ten  years  of  his  life,  he  saw  other  men, 
with  new  aims,  turn  aside  the  course  of  the 
Revolutionary  Party  in  Europe,  of  which  he 
had  so  long  been  the  head.  Nihilism,  Anarch- 
ism, aggressive  Socialism,  the  International, 
were  symptoms  that  —  speaking  broadly  — 
the  Revolution  had  begun  to  pass  from  a 
strictly  political  to  an  economic  and  industrial 
stage.  Mazzini  himself  took  no  satisfaction  in 
the  independence  and  unity  of  Italy,  because 
he  believed  that  the  monarchy  would  vitiate 
the  good  that  had  been  achieved.  To  Daniel 
Stern  he  wrote:  "Little  it  matters  to  me 
that  Italy,  a  territory  of  so  many  square 


MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY  67 

leagues,  eats  its  corn  and  cabbages  cheaper ; 
little  I  care  for  Rome  if  a  great  European 
initiative  is  not  to  issue  from  it.  What  I  do 
care  for  is  that  Italy  shall  be  great  and  good, 
moral  and  virtuous,  that  she  comes  to  fulfil 
a  mission  in  the  world."  So  to  the  end  he  re- 
mained officially  a  rebel ;  but  Victor  Eman- 
uel's  Government  winked  at  his  last  visits 
to  Italy,  where  he  died  incognito  at  Pisa, 
on  March  10,  1872. 

Stated  thus  briefly,  Mazzini's  active  career 
seems  a  failure.  Externally  no  doubt  it  was. 
Not  one  of  his  immediate  purposes  bore  the 
fruit  he  desired.  At  his  death,  his  enemies 
possessed  the  field  from  which  they  had 
driven  him.  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  he  was 
victorious.  He  equipped  more  regiments  than 
his  adversaries  knew  for  the  unification  of 
Italy.  The  lifelong  conspiracies  in  which 
Mazzini  engaged,  and  which  sometimes 
seemed  to  him,  as  they  did  to  his  contempo- 
raries, to  be  his  chief  business  in  life,  now 
turn  out  to  belong  to  the  transient  part  of  him; 
while  his  immense  moral  energy,  his  obedi- 
ence to  ideals,  and  his  almost  un equaled 
genius  for  bringing  ideals  within  reach  of  the 
masses,  constitute  his  permanent  greatness. 


68  MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY 

The  harm  which  he  did  through  abortive  up 
risings  is  patent,  but  the  good  can  never  be 
measured,  for  it  is  impossible  to  follow  the 
course  of  his  regenerative  influence  into  the 
myriads  of  hearts  that  he  aroused.  What 
George  Meredith  said  many  years  ago,  and 
Swinburne  sang  in  his  noblest  poem,  is  liter- 
ally true : 

"  But  this  man  found  his  mother  dead  and  slain, 

With  fast-seal'd  eyes, 
And  bade  the  dead  rise  up  and  live  again, 
And  she  did  rise." 

Until  Mazzini  founded  Young  Italy,  con- 
spiracy had  a  character  wholly  political ;  he 
quickened  it  with  moral  aspirations.  We 
must  remember  that  conspiracy  was  the  only 
means  by  which,  after  Waterloo,  European 
Liberals  could  make  their  desires  known  ;  for 
they  had  neither  free  speech  nor  free  press 
nor  any  voice  in  the  government.  The  French 
Revolution,  to  which  the  downtrodden  masses 
looked  for  an  example,  had  magnified  the 
Rights  of  Man  ;  Mazzini  preached  the  Duties 
of  Man.  He  purged  patriotism  of  selfishness. 
He  taught  that  political  liberty  and  independ- 
ence must  be  striven  for,  because  through 
them  alone  could  every  individual  grow  to 


MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY  69 

his  full  stature  and  play  a  serviceable  part  in 
society.  But  while  Mazzini  wisely  recognized 
that  the  individual  is  the  corner-stone,  he  was 
no  concentric  Individualist.  He  set  before 
him  the  ideal  of  "Collective  Humanity"  —  a 
world  in  which  each  nation,  state,  town,  and 
citizen  should  be%  striving  for  the  common 
welfare  of  the  race,  and  all  should  exercise  to 
the  full  their  special  energies.  He  would  have 
neither  Socialism,  with  its  leveling  and  its 
strait- jacket  for  every  talent,  nor  Anarchism 
with  its  insatiate  selfishness.  Into  the  warfare 
between  Labor  and  Capital  he  projected  moral 
considerations.  That  conflict  will  never  be 
settled,  he  held,  by  any  arrangement  patched 
up  by  economists.  Wherever  two  human  be- 
ings meet,  no  matter  in  what  relation,  there 
conscience  joins  them;  and  you  cannot,  by 
calling  them  employer  and  employee,  settle 
their  grievances  by  the  economic  law  of 
supply  and  demand  instead  of  by  justice  and 
human  sympathy  and  righteousness. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  what 
Mazzini's  religious  awakening  meant  to  Italy, 
where  the  Church  had  long  since  ceased  to 
have  any  hold  on  the  intelligent  classes,  and 
where  it  ruled  the  peasantry  through  ignor- 


70 

ance  and  superstition.  At  most,  the  Church 
operated  an  apparatus  of  ritual,  which  had 
little  to  do  with  either  true  piety  or  noble 
conduct.  Mazzini  made  his  appeal  directly  to 
the  individual  soul.  He  showed  the  moral 
issue  of  every  act,  public  and  private.  With 
terrible  sincerity,  he  brought  the  institutions, 
practices,  customs,  and  aims  of  the  age  to  a 
Day  of  Judgment  where  Duty  judged  them. 
Duty  and  Fellowship  —  those  are  the  words 
oftenest  on  his  lips,  the  ideals  whose  beauty 
and  majesty  he  celebrated  throughout  his 
life.  "  The  earth  is  our  workshop,"  he  wrote; 
"  we  may  not  curse  it,  we  must  hallow  it." 
And  again  :  "  God  will  not  ask  us,  '  What 
hast  thou  done  for  thine  own  soul  ? '  but 
*  What  hast  thou  done  for  the  souls  of  others 
—  the  sister-souls  I  gave  thee  ?  ' 

He  addresses  his  message  not  to  Italians 
only,  but  to  men  and  women  everywhere.  It 
is  as  plain  now  that  Mazzini  was  the  greatest 
individual  moral  force  in  Europe  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  as  that  the  world  has 
scarcely  begun  to  draw  from  him  the  bene- 
fits which  he  has  to  bestow.  As  long  as  he 
lived  and  was  spending  his  energy  on  special 
enterprises,  he  seemed  a  partisan,  a  fanatic, 


MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY  71 

an  incendiary.  His  enemies  thought  that  the 
failure  of  his  concrete  experiments  discred- 
ited his  principles.  Now  the  mortal  part  of 
him  has  dropped  away,  and  through  those 
principles  he  will  help  to  shape  the  new  gen- 
erations. He  lives  not  so  much  by  his  speci- 
fic teachings  in  politics,  in  social  and  indus- 
trial reform,  in  art,  in  literature,  and  in 
religion,  as  by  the  spirit  in  which  he  taught 
and  by  his  power  to  stimulate  and  to  spir- 
itualize. 

We  need  only  to  compare  Mazzini  with  his 
contemporaries  in  the  Party  of  Revolution  in 
order  to  see  how  he  surpasses  them  in  signi- 
ficance to-day.  Ledru-RoUin,  Schoelcher, 
Louis  Blanc,  are  scarcely  more  than  names 
for  our  generation  ;  Victor  Hugo,  the  sublime 
rhapsodist,  the  inexhaustible  improviser,  with 
his  colossal  vanity  and  his  pageant  of  rhetoric, 
seems  now,  even  in  his  sincerest  utterances,  to 
be  declaring  the  glory  not  of  God,  but  of 
Victor  Hugo  by  whose  grace  God  reigns ; 
the  grave,  high-minded  Herzen  worked  chiefly 
to  cure  Russia's  malady;  Kossuth,  with  his 
magical  eloquence  and  fiery  courage,  had 
no  general  message ;  Lasalle  was  fascinating, 
but  mankind  is  too  healthy  to  date  a  new  era 


72  MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY 

in  its  progress  from  a  man  who  was  killed  in 
a  duel  over  a  woman ;  Marx,  whose  doctrines 
have  had  the  widest  vogue  during  the  past 
thirty  years,  is  essentially  a  materialist,  a 
ponderous  German  pedant,  whose  remedies, 
if  they  could  take  effect  to-morrow,  would 
leave  unsolved  the  fundamental  human  pro- 
blems ;  even  Lamennais,  impassioned  and 
sympathetic,  touched  but  an  arc  of  Mazzini's 
circle. 

We  must  go  back  to  Dante  to  find  an  Ital- 
ian who  had,  like  Mazzini,  the  combination  of 
vivid  practical  intellect  with  a  highly  sens- 
itive, even  mystical,  spirituality.  Dante,  too, 
plunged  into  political  affairs  and  would  have 
reformed  the  abuses  of  his  time ;  he,  too, 
conspired,  was  banished,  seemed  beaten.  Be- 
tween him  and  Mazzini  came  Savonarola,  akin 
to  them  in  his  fierce  onslaught  on  iniquity, 
and  in  his  apparent  failure  ;  but  compared 
with  them  he  is  circumscribed  in  genius  and 
local  in  scope.  As  Dante  spoke  for  the  medi- 
eval world,  so  Mazzini  is  thus  far  Europe's 
most  authentic  spokesman  of  the  ideals  and 
hopes  of  our  new  epoch.  Had  he  not  been 
a  prophet,  he  might  easily  have  taken  a  very 
high  place  in  literature.  As  it  is,  he  has  left 


MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY  73 

some  of  the  profoundest  literary  criticism, 
besides  political  and  ethical  treatises  of  high 
rank,  and  an  extraordinary  volume  of  living 
correspondence. 

The  beauty  of  Mazzini's  private  life  rein- 
forces all  his  teachings.  The  world,  let  it  be 
never  so  hostile,  cannot  resist  the  argument 
of  self-sacrifice.  The  lapse  of  time  sanctifies 
his  forty  years  of  exile — the  poor  lodgings, 
the  unstinted  helpfulness,  the  sympathy  with 
the  joys  and  griefs  of  all  with  whom  he  had 
to  do.  He  renounced  home,  family,  even 
marriage,  for  the  sake  of  the  apostolate  to 
which  he  dedicated  himself.  He  bore  up 
against  all  defeats,  and  conquered  the  de- 
sperate doubt  which,  in  moments  of  reaction, 
rose  to  tempt  him.  One  remembers  his 
bringing  up  the  coal  for  his  feeble  landlady, 
his  sharing  half  his  small  income  with  strang- 
ers, his  night  school  for  the  Italian  boot- 
blacks and  organ-grinders  in  London,  his 
attack  on  the  "  white-slave  traffic."  One  re- 
members, too,  his  rare  capacity  for  friendship 
—  witness  the  sweetness  and  delicacy  of 
those  letters  of  his  to  Jane  Carlyle  in  one 
of  her  fits  of  wifely  jealousy ;  witness  also  the 
beautiful  message  of  consolation  he  sent  when 


74  MAZZINI'S  CENTENARY 

Saffi's  mother  died.  No  one,  it  seems,  could 
escape  the  spell  of  his  presence  —  the  spell 
which  he  still  imparts  through  his  life  and 
writings  to  those  who  never  saw  him.  Some 
time  ago  I  urged  the  person  who,  I  believe, 
is  best  qualified,  to  give  us  the  adequate  bio- 
graphy of  Mazzini  for  which  the  world  still 
waits,  and  the  reply  came  to  me,  "  I  cannot 
—  I  revere  him  too  much  !"  That  feeling  of 
reverence  thrills  every  one  who  penetrates  to 
the  heart  of  Mazzini's  life-work. 

"  Dark  with  strife, 

Like  heaven's  own  sun  that  storming  clouds  bedim, 
Was  all  his  life. 

"  Life  and  the  clouds  are  vanish'd ;  hate  and  fear 

Have  had  their  span 

Of  time  to  hurt,  and  are  not:  He  is  here, 
The  sunlike  man." 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA1 

No  analysis  of  American  character  can  be 
trusted  which  does  not  specify,  among  other 
traits,  a  large  endowment  of  idealism.  Your 
genuine  Yankee  is  practical,  and  few  have 
surpassed  him  in  grappling  with  the  concrete 
difficulties  of  life  or  in  material  prosperity ; 
but  he  differs  from  others  who  have  got  on 
in  the  world  —  from  the  Dutch,  for  instance, 
or  from  the  English  —  in  remaining  at  heart 
an  idealist.  The  more  you  see  of  the  English, 
the  more  you  are  inclined  to  look  on  Shake- 
speare as  un-English,  because  he  is  idealist 
and  uninsular ;  but  Emerson,  the  supreme 
modern  idealist,  was  the  representative  Ameri- 
can, as  Victor  Hugo  and  Ernest  Renan  were 
the  representatives  of  the  two  chief  types  of 
modern  Frenchmen.  This  Yankee  idealism 
often  hibernates,  and  sometimes  it  volatilizes 
in  pursuit  of  fads ;  but  when  the  great  issues 
call,  it  responds,  and  it  transforms  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  the  myriads  who  seem 

1  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1902. 


78  DANTE  IN   AMERICA 

ordinarily  bent  wholly  on  money-getting,  or 
on  comfort,  into  the  hosts  of  the  Lord,  re- 
solved to  sacrifice  everything  for  a  righteous 
principle.  Yesterday,  you  saw  only  salesmen 
at  their  counters,  merchants  at  the  exchange, 
bankers  planning  audacious  enterprises,  farm- 
ers haggling  with  the  country  storekeeper 
over  their  quarterly  barter :  to-day,  they  are 
all  volunteering  in  a  cause  on  which  the  wel- 
fare of  the  race  depends.  Strangers,  who 
happen  to  visit  us  at  a  time  when  our  mate- 
rial side  is  uppermost,  fall  into  wonderful 
misconceptions;  and  even  our  politicians, 
when  they  reckon  too  confidently  on  the  unin- 
terrupted sway  of  our  "  practical "  qualities, 
are  often  swept  down  by  an  outburst  of  ideal- 
ism. 

To  this  quality,  among  other  influences, 
we  may  trace  the  singular  hold  which  Dante 
has  had  during  the  past  sixty  years  on  the 
foremost  Americans.  The  number  of  his 
readers  here  at  any  one  time  is  small,  but  it  is 
choice.  Out  of  the  handful  have  sprung  Long- 
fellow, Lowell,  and  Norton,  each  of  whom 
has  contributed  a  work  of  capital  importance 
in  the  Dantean  field ;  nor  should  George 
Ticknor,  the  earliest  distinguished  American 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  79 

expounder  of  Dante,  or  Dr.  T.  W.  Parsons, 
who  wrote  one  sterling  poem  on  Dante  and 
an  incomplete  translation  of  the  epic,  be  for- 
gotten. Contrast  their  achievement  with  the 
barrenness  of  the  literary  product  of  classical 
scholarship  in  America.  Until  the  last  genera- 
tion our  higher  education  was  based  on  Latin 
and  Greek,  yet  from  among  the  throng  of 
adepts  in  the  classics,  and  from  the  larger 
throng  who  were  driven  through  them  on 
the  way  to  culture,  not  one  has  produced  a 
first-rate  translation  of  Homer  or  the  Greek 
dramatists,  nor  of  Virgil  or  Lucretius ;  and 
nobody  here  has  written  on  any  of  these  such 
an  essay  as  Lowell  wrote  on  Dante,  a  piece  of 
genuine  literature  and  an  addition  to  literary 
criticism.  The  names  of  our  few  Latinists  and 
Grecians  known  outside  of  the  narrow  circle 
of  their  specialties  are  those  of  men  who 
have  compiled  grammars  and  revised  texts 
worthy  of  very  great  respect,  but  having  no 
more  to  do  with  literature  than  the  study  of 
the  structure  of  the  larynx  has  to  do  with 
oratory.  And  even  our  best  classical  special- 
ists, with  perhaps  two  or  three  exceptions, 
rank  below  the  Germans.  Not  long  ago  one 
American  professor  told  me  with  mingled  awe 


80  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

and  exultation  that  Curtius  had  once  referred 
approvingly  to  an  emendation  of  an  obscure 
Greek  text  suggested  by  another  American 
professor!  Very  good  ;  but  how  many  days 
go  by  in  any  college  or  university  in  the 
world  where  Greek  philology  is  studied  that 
Curtius  himself  is  not  still  cited? 

Thus  it  is  that  although  our  classical 
scholars  are  many  and  our  Dante  scholars 
few,  the  literary  achievement  of  the  classicists 
has  been  insignificant,  while  that  of  the 
Danteans  has  been  relatively  large.  Is  this 
because,  let  the  classicists  strive  as  hard  as 
they  will,  they  can  never  so  purge  themselves 
of  the  antipagan  legacy  bequeathed  by  Puri- 
tanism as  to  become  really  classical  in  spirit? 
Or  is  it  because  the  pedant,  who  struggles 
for  mastery  (and  usually  conquers)  in  every 
teacher,  instinctively  fastens  on  those  portions 
of  Latin  and  Greek  which  have  always  been 
the  favorite  victuals  of  pedantry  ?  Whatever 
the  explanation,  the  fact  remains  that  Dante 
has  inspired  works  which  in  any  survey  of 
American  literature  during  the  past  fifty  years 
could  not  be  overlooked;  and  it  should  be 
added  that  such  books  as  Dr.  Fay's  and  Pro- 
fessor Sheldon's  concordances,  Mr.  Koch's 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  81 

"  Bibliography,"  and  Latham's  edition  of 
Dante's  "  Letters,"  not  to  mention  articles  on 
special  points,  bear  equally  high  testimony  to 
American  philological  scholarship. 

Dante's  idealism,  with  its  vivid  specific  il- 
lustrations, appeals  strongly  to  the  highest 
type  of  American  idealist.  To  the  French,  he 
has  meant  little,  because  they  are  not  idealists. 
A  race  which  has  never  really  persuaded  it- 
self of  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  law — a 
race  which  expressed  its  characteristic  views 
of  life  through  Montaigne  hi  the  sixteenth 
century,  through  Moliere  in  the  seventeenth, 
through  Voltaire  in  the  eighteenth,  and 
through  Renan  in  the  nineteenth  — could 
not  possibly  find  Dante's  moral  intensity 
congenial.  The  French  think  that  they  have 
exhausted  him  when  they  have  turned  over 
Dore's  drawings  of  the  Hell. 

But  let  us  not  generalize  farther.  Dante's 
treasures  are  so  varied  that  men  who  differ 
most  widely  among  themselves  are  his  ad- 
mirers. Minds  as  far  apart  as  Gladstone  and 
Matthew  Arnold  called  him  master ;  dilettanti 
like  Rossetti  and  Pater — (Pater,  who  de- 
clared Shadwell's  sing-song  verse  the  best 
English  equivalent  for  Dante's  terza  rima  /) 


82  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

—  sought  Dante  as  if  he  were  a  dilettante ; 
and  so  one  might  go  on  to  enumerate  the 
diversified  company  of  those  who  would  agree 
only  in  their  admiration  of  Dante's  genius. 
But  the  almost  simultaneous  publication  of 
the  Rev.  Charles  Allen  Dinsmore's  study, 
"  The  Teachings  of  Dante,"1  and  of  Professor 
Charles  Eliot  Norton's  revised  translation  of 
"  The  Divine  Comedy," 2  is  a  sufficient  ex- 
ample of  this.  For  in  most  matters,  certainly 
in  the  forms  in  which  most  of  the  deepest  con- 
cerns of  life  are  expressed,  Mr.  Dinsmore  and 
Mr.  Norton  would  evidently  not  coincide,  but 
in  their  idealism  and  in  their  moral  earnest- 
ness the  orthodox  minister  and  the  open- 
minded  agnostic  are  akin. 

Mr.  Dinsmore's  book  is  a  surprise,  because 
it  suddenly  springs  up  and  proves  its  right  to 
exist  in  a  field  which  seemed  already  over- 
crowded. One  would  have  said  that  for  the 
average  English  reader  Symonds's  handbook, 
Maria  Rossetti's  "Shadow  of  Dante,"  and 
Mr.  Edmund  Gardner's  recent  marvelously 

1  The  Teachings  of  Dante.  By  Charles  Allen  Dinsmore. 
Boston  and  New  York  :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1901. 

8  The  Divine  Comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri.  Translated  by 
Charles  Eliot  Norton.  Riverside  Edition,  3  vols.  Boston 
and  New  York  :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1902. 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  83 

compact  primer  would  suffice ;  but  one  may 
have  these  and  other  manuals  and  still  find 
Mr.  Dinsmore's  book  of  great  value.  Interest- 
ing it  certainly  is.  Mr.  Dinsmore  differs  from 
Symonds,  Maria  Rossetti,  and  Mr.  Gardner 
in  being  interpretative  rather  than  descriptive. 
They  are  intent  on  historical,  biographical, 
and  literary  elucidation,  and  on  disentangling 
the  skein  of  allegory ;  he  is  concerned  with 
the  upshot  of  it  all,  with  Dante's  message. 

The  broad  interpretation  he  gives  of 
Dante's  view  of  sin  and  redemption  is  un- 
usually fresh  because  he  approaches  "The 
Divine  Comedy  "  as  a  Calvinist.  The  depth 
of  his  criticism  can  best  be  shown  in  two  or 
three  brief  quotations.  "  Our  modern  ortho- 
dox" (that  is,  Presbyterian)  "view,"  he  says, 
"beginning  with  faith,  emphasizes  the  re- 
demptive grace  of  God,  and  insists  that  man 
is  saved,  not  by  what  he  does  for  himself, 
but  by  what  God  does  for  him  and  with 
him.  .  .  .  We  measure  progress  by  our  deep- 
ening consciousness  that  our  lives  are  'hid 
with  Christ  in  God,'  and  out  of  this  sense  of 
intimate  relationship  grow  all  Christian  joy 
and  peace  and  hope.  Coming  to  Dante  from 
the  atmosphere  of  the  modern  pulpit,  we  are 


84  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

surprised  at  the  utter  absence  of  this  feeling 
of  the  union  of  the  soul  with  God  during  the 
process  of  salvation.  .  .  .  Another  character- 
istic continually  manifests  itself.  One  cannot 
fail  to  note  how  conspicuously  Christ  is  ab- 
sent from  this  mighty  drama  of  salvation. 
His  work  of  atonement  is  assumed,  his  deity 
is  fully  recognized,  but  he  himself  is  rather 
a  celestial  glory  in  the  background  than  a  per- 
vasive presence  on  the  scene  of  action.  In 
Dante  there  is  not  the  faintest  intimation  of 
the  thought,  so  prominent  in  these  days,  that 
Christ  is  Christianity.  His  is  distinctively  a 
gospel  of  a  system,  ours  of  a  person.  .  .  .  He 
differs  from  nearly  all  preeminent  preachers 
of  righteousness  in  his  starting-point.  He 
begins  with  man,  they  with  God." 

These  extracts  will  suffice  to  show  that 
Mr.  Dinsmore  goes  to  the  very  foundations ; 
but  only  a  reading  of  the  book  itself  can  give 
an  idea  of  the  ease  and  vigor  and  attractive- 
ness with  which  he  discusses  his  great  themes. 
He  is  evidently  a  theologian ;  but  above  the 
intellectual  pleasure  which  theological  dis- 
putation brings  him,  he  no  less  evidently  sets 
practical  religion,  the  application  of  doctrine 
to  conduct.  As  he  reads  with  his  own  eyes, 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  85 

and  thinks  with  his  own  brain,  his  criticism 
has  an  unacademic  freshness  which  is  like 
a  cool  breeze  in  the  desert.  Books  with  him 
are  not  mere  topics  for  idle  conversation,  but 
vital  facts,  compounded  of  good  and  evil,  to 
be  used  or  shunned  by  the  soul  which  has 
dedicated  itself  to  righteousness. 

At  the  outset,  a  casual  reader  might  be  mis- 
led, by  Mr.  Dinsmore's  many  admiring  refer- 
ences to  Jonathan  Edwards,  into  expecting 
criticism  of  only  parochial  range;  and,  in- 
deed, it  is  a  mistake  to  call  Edwards  "  our 
Puritan  Dante."  Edwards  is  now  remem- 
bered chiefly  for  having  mistaken  a  demon 
for  God,  and  for  describing  the  everlasting 
torments  of  hell  with  such  terrific  vividness 
that  he  has  filled  far  more  insane  asylums  on 
earth  than  seats  of  the  blest  in  heaven.  It  is 
time  that  posterity,  which  has  repudiated  his 
abominable  teachings,  should  let  his  name 
sink  into  oblivion.  Herod  has  been  execrated 
for  causing  the  slaughter  of  a  few  hundred 
innocent  babes ;  but  Edwards  devoted  his 
talent  to  convincing  the  world  that  an  omni- 
potent monster  has  gone  on  creating  myriads 
of  millions  of  human  creatures,  of  whom 
hardly  one  in  every  thousand  is  "  saved," 


86  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

and  he  calls  this  monster  who  had  not  He- 
rod's excuse,  "  God,"  that  is,  Good.  Let  us 
have  done  with  Edwards,  and  cease  to  im- 
agine that  he  is  in  any  sense  a  Dante. 

But  in  his  citation  of  modern  authors,  as 
in  his  references  to  the  Bible  and  the  classics, 
Mr.  Dinsmore  is  of  ten  very  striking:  as  when 
he  points  out  that  Vassall  Morton,  the  hero 
of  Francis  Parkman's  only  novel,  agrees  with 
Dante  in  figuring  "  the  depth  of  wretchedness 
as  the  bondage  of  a  quagmire."  In  reading 
his  chapter  on  "  Purgatory  in  Literature,"  in 
which  he  concludes  that  the  methods  of  ex- 
piation described  by  Hawthorne  in  "  The 
Scarlet  Letter  "  and  by  Tennyson  in  Guine- 
vere, are  "  Dantean  rather  than  Christian," 
you  recognize  a  literary  critic  of  independent 
judgment,  just  as,  in  the  following  passages, 
you  perceive  that  he  has  converted  certain 
large  modern  philosophic  ideas  into  terms  of 
literary  criticism. 

After  stating  that  Dante  is  the  greatest  of 
all  champions  of  the  freedom  of  the  will,  in 
contrast  with  Shakespeare,  who,  in  Hamlet, 
in  Macbeth,  in  Othello,  virtually  "  declares 
that  man  but  half -controls  his  fate,"  Mr. 
Dinsmore  continues :  "  The  leading  Greek 


DANTE  IN   AMERICA  87 

dramas  still  more  impressively  interpret  man 
as  a  grain  of  wheat  between  the  upper  and 
nether  millstones  of  adverse  forces.  The 
characters  appear  to  be  free,  but  if  one 
looks  deeper  down,  he  perceives  that  they 
are  the  representatives  of  vast  world  pow- 
ers, while  the  tragedy  is  the  suffering  of 
the  individual  as  the  two  malign  energies 
crush  against  each  other.  The  classic  trag- 
edy is  commonly  constructed  on  the  essen- 
tial antagonism  between  the  family  and  the 
state.  The  necessity  of  such  collision  is  no 
longer  apparent  to  us,  and  we  have  changed 
the  name  of  the  colossal  powers  that  make 
sport  of  human  life.  For  family  and  state 
we  read  heredity  and  environment,  —  task- 
masters as  exacting  and  irresistible,  which 
allow  even  less  room  for  the  freedom  of  the 
individual  will." 

Such  passages  as  these  should  convince 
readers  who  are  in  earnest  that  Mr.  Dins- 
more  has  written  a  book  for  them ;  lovers  of 
Dante  have  already  welcomed  him  as  a  con- 
genial colleague.  Merely  as  a  running  com- 
mentary on  Dante's  life  and  the  chief  cur- 
rents of  "  The  Divine  Comedy,"  his  book 
may  be  freely  recommended  ;  while  for  its 


88  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

special  qualities,  to  some  of  which  I  have 
briefly  alluded,  it  deserves  to  be  weighed  by 
all  students  in  this  field. 

Ten  years  have  passed  since  Professor  Nor- 
ton first  published  his  translation  of  "  The 
Divine  Comedy."  These  years  have  tested 
the  work  and  left  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  best 
in  English ;  they  have  also  popularized  the 
conviction  that  prose,  and  not  poetry,  is  the 
better  medium  for  the  translator  to  use.  Any- 
body who  can  read  a  great  poem  in  the  orig- 
inal naturally  desires  to  have  the  form  which 
stamps  it  as  poetry  reproduced  in  a  transla- 
tion ;  but  when  he  makes  the  experiment,  he 
will  find,  in  the  case  of  two  languages  as  dis- 
similar in  their  prosody  as  are  English  and 
Italian,  that  he  must  be  content  with  a  form 
which  does  not  at  all  correspond  to  the  orig- 
inal. In  spite  of  many  attempts,  our  poets, 
writing  spontaneously  in  English,  have  never 
succeeded  in  naturalizing  the  Italian  terza 
rima :  Shelley  came  nearest,  in  that  remark- 
able fragment,  "  The  Triumph  of  Life  "  ; 
but  no  ear  accustomed  to  Dante  can  get 
equal  satisfaction,  or  satisfaction  of  the  same 
sort,  from  that  as  from  the  Italian  ;  and  no 
ear  trained  to  English  verse  would  mistake 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  89 

Shelley's  terza  rima  for  native,  in  the  way 
in  which  the  ottava  rima  in  Byron's  "  Beppo  " 
and  "  Don  Juan  "  is  native. 

An  equivalent  metrical  form  for  the  terza 
rima  of  "  The  Divine  Comedy  "  being  out  of 
the  question  in  English,  what  shall  a  trans- 
lator bent  on  a  metrical  version  do  ?  If  wise, 
like  Longfellow,  he  will  prefer  blank  verse  ; 
if  foolish,  or  dilettante,  like  Mr.  Lancelot 
Shadwell,  he  will  choose  Marvell's  "Hora- 
tian  Ode  "  as  his  pattern.  Before  our  age  of 
realism,  which  insists  on  the  closest  fidelity 
to  fact,  a  translator  might  candidly  announce 
that  he  proposed  to  put  as  much  of  the  for- 
eign poem  into  a  genuine  English  metre  as 
he  could,  regardless  of  metrical  correspond- 
ence. Pope  practically  said  this  when  he 
turned  Homer's  hexameters  into  heroic  coup- 
lets ;  and,  in  the  realm  of  painting,  the  old 
masters  did  this  when  they  clothed  Christ 
and  his  apostles  in  contemporary  Renais- 
sance garments,  and  were  untroubled  by  the 
anachronism.  Pope's  poem  possesses  many 
excellences,  but  they  are  due  to  Pope's  gen- 
ius working  in  a  medium  over  which  it  had 
absolute  mastery,  and  not  to  any  close  re- 
semblance to  Homer ;  but  to-day,  when  we 


90  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

wish  to  know  what  Homer,  and  not  Pope, 
actually  says,  it  does  not  satisfy  us. 

And  so  we  are  thrown  back  to  a  prose 
translation  as  the  vehicle  which  can  convey 
the  substance  of  Homer's  epic  or  of  Dante's, 
and  convey  it  without  interposing  an  Eng- 
lish metrical  form  which  no  more  represents 
that  of  the  original  than  a  cornet  can  repre- 
sent a  full  orchestra.  There  is,  of  course, 
another  medium,  the  so-called  "  poetic  prose," 
a  sort  of  tertium  quid,  of  which  the  less  we 
say  the  better.  "  Sir,"  quoth  Dr.  Johnson, 
referring  to  Macpherson's  "  Ossian,"  the 
most  celebrated  specimen  of  poetic  prose 
ever  perpetrated  in  English,  "  Sir,  a  man 
might  write  such  stuff  forever,  if  he  would 
abandon  his  mind  to  it."  Persons  who  de- 
light in  it  have  certainly  never  felt  the 
rhythm  which  belongs  as  structurally  to  all 
good  prose  as  to  poetry ;  they,  the  fatuous 
ones,  would  paint  the  lily  and  throw  a  per- 
fume on  the  violet.  In  vain  do  you  tell  them 
that,  though  walking  and  dancing  have  each 
their  proper  grace,  to  try  to  combine  the  two 
produces  a  ridiculous  caper.  But  in  literature, 
as  in  life,  a  pet  is  not  the  less  fondled  for 
being  a  mongrel. 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  91 

Accepting  thoroughbred  prose,  therefore, 
as  the  proper  medium  for  translating  "  The 
Divine  Comedy,"  the  best  translation  will  be 
that  which  gives  in  the  best  English  the 
exact  meaning  of  the  original.  It  will  be  as 
truthful  as  a  "crib,"  but  it  will  have  also 
those  literary  qualities  which  we  look  for  in 
our  racy  prose.  That  such  a  happy  combina- 
tion could  be  hit  upon,  Dr.  John  Carlyle 
showed  more  than  fifty  years  ago.  His  ver- 
sion was  so  good  that  had  it  covered  the 
three  canticles,  instead  of  the  first  only,  Mr. 
Norton  has  said  that  he  would  not  have  un- 
dertaken his  translation.  Mr.  Norton  has  the 
obvious  advantage  over  Dr.  Carlyle  in  com- 
ing half  a  century  later,  when  many  obscur- 
ities due  to  imperfect  text  have  been  cleared 
up,  when  the  minute  details  of  Florentine 
and  Italian  history  in  Dante's  time  have  been 
laid  bare,  and  the  few  plain  facts  in  Dante's 
own  career  have  been  separated  from  much 
fiction.  But  Mr.  Norton's  superiority  has  a 
still  deeper  cause  than  the  wider  information 
which  is  now  accessible  to  every  reader  of 
Dante :  it  rests  not  merely  on  more  know- 
ledge, but  on  a  more  intimate  sympathy. 
Dante  has  had  many  devotees,  but  among 


92  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

them  all  none  has  surpassed  Mr.  Norton  in 
a  union  of  qualifications  for  understanding 
his  spirit,  and  for  communicating  it  to  others. 
Add  to  this  a  command  of  English  equal  to 
every  need,  —  English  so  transparent  that  it 
allows  the  meaning  of  the  original  to  shine 
through  without  taking  the  slightest  tinge 
from  the  translator's  personality,  —  and  you 
have  the  ideal  translator. 

It  would  be  easy  to  demonstrate  by  paral- 
lel passages  that  Mr.  Norton's  version  excels 
both  in  accuracy  and  in  English  style  that  of 
Dr.  Carlyle,  his  only  serious  competitor  in  the 
first  canticle,  and  those  of  Mr.  A.  J.  Butler, 
Mr.  Dugdale,  and  others,  in  the  second  and 
third ;  but  such  a  method  could  be  conclusive 
only  if  there  were  space  here  to  give  extracts 
sufficiently  long  and  varied  to  be  fairly  repre- 
sentative. A  few  test  passages  might  satisfy 
the  expert ;  but  any  doubter  who  will  read 
in  succession  the  several  versions  of  a  single 
canto  cannot  fail,  if  he  have  an  ear  for  Eng- 
lish prose,  to  pronounce  Mr.  Norton's  the 
best.  And  if  he  then  compare  the  English 
line  by  line  and  word  by  word  with  the  orig- 
inal, he  will  find  that  Mr.  Norton  interprets 
most  closely  Dante's  thought. 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  93 

This  new  edition  is  almost  a  new  work,  so 
carefully  has  Mr.  Norton  scrutinized  every 
word  and  substituted  the  better  for  what  was 
good  before.  This  results,  in  some  cases,  in 
the  adoption  of  a  different  interpretation. 
Thus  in  Francesca  da  Rimini's  story  the  lines 

"  Per  pivl  fiate  gli  occhi  ci  sospinse 
Quella  lettura,  e  scolorocci  il  viso  " 

become  "Many  times  that  reading  urged  our 
eyes,  and  took  the  color  from  our  faces,"  in- 
stead of  the  earlier,  "  Many  times  that  reading 
made  us  lift  our  eyes,  and  took  the  color  from 
our  faces."  John  Carlyle  has  it, "  Several  times 
that  reading  urged  our  eyes  to  meet,  and 
changed  the  color  of  our  faces."  Mr.  Butler, 
who  shows  a  tendency  to  paraphrase,  says, 
"Many  times  did  that  reading  impel  our 
eyes,  and  change  the  hue  of  our  visages." 
Which  did  Dante  mean?  That  the  reading  so 
absorbed  Francesca  and  her  lover  that  it  urged 
them  to  return  to  it  several  times,  or  that 
the  amorous  story  caused  them  more  than 
once  to  raise  their  eyes  and  look  at  each 
other,  and  to  change  color  as  they  thus  dis- 
covered their  mutual  passion?  The  reader 
may  choose ;  I  cite  the  passage  to  show  how 
through  what  seems  a  slight  verbal  emenda- 


94  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

tion  the  new  edition  sometimes  differs  widely 
from  the  old. 

More  often  the  changes  have  apparently 
been  inspired  by  the  wish  to  make  the  Eng- 
lish read  more  smoothly.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  opening  of  the  twenty-sixth  canto  of  Hell : 
"Rejoice,  Florence,  since  thou  art  so  great 
that  over  sea  and  land  thou  beatest  thy  wings, 
and  thy  name  is  spread  through  Hell.  Among 
the  thieves  I  found  five  such,  thy  citizens, 
whereat  shame  comes  to  me,  and  thou  unto 
great  honor  risest  not  thereby."  So  reads  the 
earlier  version;  the  latter  runs  thus:  "Re- 
joice, Florence,  since  thou  art  so  great  that 
thou  beatest  thy  wings  over  sea  and  land, 
and  thy  name  is  spread  through  Hell !  Among 
the  thieves  I  found  five  such,  thy  citizens, 
whereat  shame  comes  to  me,  and  thou  dost 
not  mount  unto  great  honor  thereby."  The 
ear  acknowledges  at  once  the  superiority  of 
the  latter  version.  And  so  from  the  first  page 
to  the  last,  there  are  few  lines  which  do  not 
bear  witness  to  the  ten  years'  polishing 
which  Mr.  Norton  has  bestowed  on  this  edi- 
tion. He  has  treated  word  and  phrase  and 
sentence  as  a  jeweler  treats  his  gems.  Any- 
body who  compares  the  two  versions  will  learn 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  95 

how  a  mind  of  the  most  delicate  critical 
sensitiveness  works,  —  how  patiently,  how 
reasonably ;  now  cautious,  now  trusting  boldly 
to  imagination.  Here  we  see  taste  in  action. 

This  new  version  not  only  supersedes  the 
old  in  the  text,  but  also  in  the  notes,  which 
are  at  least  trebled  in  number,  though  still 
brief,  pertinent,  and  un controversial.  With 
these  volumes  a  person  reading  only  English 
can  get  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  sub- 
stance of  "The  Divine  Comedy"  —yes,  and 
more  than  the  substance  —  and  an  explana- 
tion of  all  the  really  important  difficulties. 
If  any  passages  remain  dark,  it  is  because 
they  are  dark  in  the  original,  and  the  trans- 
lator does  not  believe  in  substituting  for 
Dante's  words  an  explanatory  paraphrase. 
We  wish  that  it  had  been  possible  to  reprint 
as  a  general  introduction  the  essay  on  Dante 
which  Mr.  Norton  prepared  for  Warner's 
Library  a  few  years  ago;  for  nowhere  else  in 
the  same  compass — not  even  in  Lowell's 
essay — can  the  novice  and  the  expert  alike 
find  so  precious  a  survey  of  Dante  and  his 
works. 

Next  to  writing  a  classic,  the  best  service 
which  a  man  of  letters  can  render  is  to  trans- 


96  DANTE  IN  AMERICA 

late  a  classic  so  that  it  shall  live  in  a  new 
language  as  if  it  were  a  native.  This  Mr. 
Norton  has  done,  and  those  of  us  who  take 
the  highest  view  of  literature  must  feel  grate- 
ful to  him  for  this  final  revision :  an  artist  less 
conscientious  than  he  would  have  been  satis- 
fied with  his  earlier  achievement.  Now  Dante 
lives  in  English,  and  it  may  well  turn  out 
that  this  translation  shall  stand  as  the  chief 
literary  product  in  America  during  the  past 
twenty  years.  Our  fiction  varies  with  the 
seasons,  nay,  with  the  months  and  weeks: 
who  recalls  now  the  title  of  the  novel  which 
last  June  or  July  a  dozen  of  our  best-known 
critics  declared  would  be  read  as  long1  as  the 

O 

English  language  lasts?  I  wonder  that  the 
older  novelists — Mr.  Ho  wells,  for  instance  — 
do  not  republish  under  new  names  their 
earlier  works;  would  anybody  know?  Some 
of  our  critics  expound  literature  according  to 
the  social  position  of  authors,  or,  following 
Pater,  books  are  to  them  like  different  kinds 
of  candy,  and  the  business  of  the  critic  is 
to  describe  the  flavor  of  each  as  it  glides 
over  the  palate.  Our  poets  —  but  let  us  re- 
spect their  incognito.  Amid  such  conditions, 
common  to  periods  of  reaction,  it  must  be 


DANTE  IN  AMERICA  97 

beneficial  to  have  attention  once  again 
centred  on  Dante,  who  is  a  sure  antidote  to 
persiflage  and  dilettanteism,  and  to  the  wor- 
ship of  the  things  which  perish,  and  who,  of 
all  poets,  best  teaches  how  man  makes  himself 
eternal.  To  Mr.  Norton  let  us  apply  Sainte- 
Beuve's  shining  phrase,  "La  belle  destinee 
de  ne  pouvoir  plus  mourir,  sinon  avec  un 
immortel!" 


GIORDANO  BRUNO'S  "EXPULSION 
OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT" 


GIORDANO    BRUNO'S    "EXPULSION 
OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT"1 

AMONG  the  pioneers  of  human  thought  whose 
memories  our  time  has  rescued  from  unmer- 
ited oblivion,  Giordano  Bruno  stands  con- 
spicuous. Born  in  1548,  he  was  burned  by 
order  of  the  Inquisition  in  1600.  Coming  at 
the  period  when  Protestantism  had  finally  es- 
tablished itself  in  northern  Europe,  and  when 
Catholicism,  unable  to  crush  it  out,  had,  at 
the  Council  of  Trent,  decreed  "  no  compro- 
mise," Bruno  treated  with  equal  scorn  the  up- 
holders of  both  the  old  and  the  new  religion. 
By  temperament,  he  could  not  conform.  He 
saw  too  clearly  the  insufficiency  and  contra- 
dictions in  any  orthodox  creed,  and  he  could 
not  refrain  from  saying  so.  He  was  one  of 
those  rare  beings  who,  in  the  presence  of  the 
universe,  find  all  classification,  all  limiting 

1  From  The  New  World,  September,  1894.  For  bio- 
graphical study  of  Giordano  Bruno,  I  may  refer  the  reader 
to  my  volume,  "  Throne-Makers,"  in  which  is  reprinted  my 
essay  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1890. 


102    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

definitions,  intolerably  inadequate ;  he  was 
a  heretic,  a  seeker  after  truth,  whose  daring 
exploration  blazed  the  way  for  the  build- 
ers of  a  wider  orthodoxy.  As  much  by  what 
he  shatters  as  by  what  he  suggests  must 
we  value  him,  —  by  the  penetration  of  his 
separate  thoughts,  rather  than  by  the  per- 
manent applicability  of  his  whole  system  of 
thought. 

The  most  popular,  if  not  the  most  import- 
ant of  Bruno's  Italian  writings  is  his  "  Ex- 
pulsion of  the  Beast  Triumphant," — a  vast, 
strange  work,  which  comes  to  us  swaddled 
in  the  rhetorical  and  scholastic  garb  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  but  which  still  reveals 
a  mighty  heart,  and  a  soul  in  which  brood 
deep  thoughts  concerning  the  destiny  of  man, 
the  order  of  the  universe,  and  the  nature  of 
God.  No  satire  more  powerful  —  not  even 
that  of  Rabelais  —  was  written  during  the 
Renaissance.  Under  a  thin  disguise  of  alle- 
gory —  put  on  to  allow  him  to  say  what,  if 
said  nakedly,  would  have  brought  him  the 
sooner  to  the  stake  —  Bruno  exposes  the  in- 
adequacy of  all  anthropomorphic  religion, 
whether  Christian  or  Pagan,  Hebrew  or 
Mahometan.  Outwardly  he  seems  to  be  ridi- 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    103 

culing  the  exploded  polytheism  of  classic 
Greece  and  Rome;  inwardly,  he  aims  at 
overthrowing  the  worship  of  any  god  made 
in  the  likeness  of  man,  and  at  substituting 
for  such  a  personal  deity  the  reign  of  ethical 
truth,  impersonal  and  everlasting.  As  the 
mass  of  mankind  are  still  at  the  anthropo- 
morphic stage  in  religion,  Bruno's  "  Expul- 
sion of  the  Beast  Triumphant "  has  a  direct 
application  to-day,  and  is  not  merely  one 
of  those  products  of  an  outgrown  period  to 
be  read,  if  read  at  all,  for  their  antiquarian 
interest.  I  propose,  therefore,  to  present  as 
briefly  as  possible  Bruno's  satire ;  but  while 
endeavoring  to  make  it  readily  intelligible 
to  a  modern  reader,  as  an  exact  translation 
could  not  be,  I  shall  guard  against  import- 
ing into  his  thoughts  modern  connotations 
which  do  not  belong  there,  and  from  cum- 
bering this  paraphrase  with  criticism  of  my 
own. 

Bruno  spent  some  time  in  England  about 
1580,  and  he  dedicates  his  work  to  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  "  of  truly  heroic  disposition." 
In  this  dedication  he  states  that  Jove,  "  who 
represents  each  one  of  us,"  and  also  typifies 
the  Supreme  Being  as  then  worshiped,  after 


104    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

a  long  reign  of  sensuality  and  unreason,  be- 
comes suddenly  aware  that  he  is  growing  old, 
and  that  Fate,  to  whom  he  also  is  subject, 
will  dethrone  him  and  his  Olympian  com- 
rades, and  will  set  up  worthier  deities  in 
their  stead.  Smitten  by  this  premonition  of 
decay,  Jove  resolves  to  make  what  repara- 
tion he  can  by  expelling  from  heaven  the 
evidences  of  lust  and  misrule  and  folly,  and 
to  replace  them  by  the  virtues,  too  long  neg- 
lected. The  description  of  this  reform  is  given 
in  three  dialogues,  in  which  Sofia,  or  Wisdom, 
reports  to  Saulino,  a  philosopher,  the  news 
as  it  is  brought  to  her  by  Mercury. 

Wisdom  at  first  lays  down  one  of  Bruno's 
radical  principles,  "  that  the  beginning,  mid- 
dle, and  end  —  the  birth,  growth,  and  perfec- 
tion —  of  all  we  see  is  by  contraries,  through 
contraries,  in  contraries,  to  contraries," 
change  and  varieties  being  the  laws  of  life, 
the  sources  of  pleasure,  the  necessary  condi- 
tions of  development.  Latterly,  Jove  himself 
has  waked  up  to  this  truth.  He  will  have 
no  more  of  those  lascivious  metamorphoses 
into  swans,  or  eagles,  or  satyrs  ;  Vulcan  shall 
close  his  stithy  on  holy  days  ;  Bacchus  and  his 
crew  shall  confine  their  jollity  to  the  Garni- 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    105 

val  season;  Cupid  is  forbidden  to  wander 
about  in  the  presence  of  men,  heroes,  and 
gods,  without  his  breeches,  as  is  his  custom, 
and  he  is  enjoined  no  longer  to  offend  the 
eyesight  of  the  heavenly  company  by  show- 
ing his  nakedness  on  the  Milky  Way  or  in 
the  Olympian  Senate,  but  for  the  future  to 
go  clothed  —  at  least  from  the  waist  down- 
wards. Ganymede,  and  Hyacinth  the  lover  of 
Apollo,  and  all  the  other  young  persons 
of  doubtful  morals  have  fallen  into  disfavor. 
The  day  before  yesterday,  the  anniversary  of 
the  victory  of  the  Gods  over  the  Giants,  all 
this  came  about.  When  Venus  approached 
the  loud-thundering  Father,  to  caress  him, 
she  was  rebuked  by  him.  "  It  is  no  time 
for  caresses,"  said  he;  "you  imagine  that 
once  young  means  always  young;  whereas, 
age  steals  upon  us,  too.  I  am  become  like 
^Esop's  old  lion  whom  the  ass  kicks  with  im- 
punity, and  the  monkey  insults  with  grimaces. 
There,  where  I  had  oracles  most  noble,  and 
temples  and  altars,  now, —  these  being  over- 
thrown and  most  unworthily  profaned,  —  in 
their  place  they  have  set  up  shrines  and 
statues  to  certain  ones  whom  I  am  ashamed 
to  name,  because  they  are  worse  than  our 


106    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

satyrs  and  fauns  and  other  half-beasts,  nay, 
viler  than  the  Egyptian  crocodiles.  To  our 
nostrils  comes  no  longer  the  smoke  of  roast- 
ing done  in  our  service  on  the  altar ;  and  if, 
now  and  then,  we  desire  to  smell  it,  we  must 
visit  our  kitchens,  like  pastry-cook  gods.  Be- 
hold how  my  body  dries,  and  humors  seethe 
in  my  brain ;  my  joints  stiffen  and  my  teeth 
drop;  my  flesh  turns  golden,  and  my  locks 
turn  silvery;  my  eyelids  are  swollen,  and  my 
vision  contracts ;  my  wind  grows  feeble,  and 
my  cough  increases.  You  see,  therefore,  dear 
sister,  how  the  traitor,  Time,  masters  us  — 
how  we  are  all  subject  to  mutation ;  and 
what  most  afflicts  us  is,  that  we  have  neither 
certitude  nor  hope  of  recovering  that  very 
estate  in  which  we  were  once.  Only  Truth, 
with  absolute  Virtue,  is  immortal ;  and  though 
sometimes  she  falls  or  is  submerged,  neces- 
sarily, at  the  appointed  hour,  she  rises,  her 
handmaiden  Wisdom  stretching  her  arm  to 
her." 

So  Jove  speaks  to  Venus,  instead  of 
welcoming  her  kisses,  or  joining  her  in  the 
dance ;  and  immediately  after  dinner,  he  sum- 
mons all  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  to  a  council. 
Momus,  God  of  mockery  and  satire,  objects 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    107 

that  the  time  is  un propitious,  and  hints  that 
the  Great  Father  has  drunk  too  freely  of 
nectar,  which  makes  some  merry  and  some 
melancholy.  But  Jove  heeds  not  the  banter, 
and  he  announces  immediately  that  matters 
of  such  gravity  await  decision  that  the  cus- 
tomary after-dinner  revels  must  be  post- 
poned. It  will  be  better  to  hear  and  discuss 
the  sad  news,  having  eaten,  than  on  an  empty 
stomach.  Then  he  attacks  the  business  boldly. 
"To-day,"  he  says,  "we  celebrate  our  victory 
over  the  Giants,  yet  by  the  very  mice  of  the 
Earth  are  we  despised  and  abused ;  and  with 
reason,  because  the  firmament  itself  bears 
witness  to  our  misdeeds.  Why  is  the  Dolphin, 
joined  on  the  north  by  Capricorn,  master  of 
fifteen  stars?  He  is  there,  so  that  all  the  world 
may  contemplate  the  assumption  of  him  who 
was  a  good  broker,  not  to  say  pander,  between 
Neptune  and  Amphitrite.  For  what  reason 
does  Sagittarius  usurp  one-and-thirty  stars? 
Because  he  was  the  son  of  Euschemia,  nurse 
of  the  Muses.  Why  is  Orion,  all  armed  for 
single  combat,  with  wide-stretched  arms, 
studded  with  thirty-eight  stars,  in  the  eastern 
latitude  near  Taurus  ?  He  stands  there  simply 
by  Neptune's  caprice.  .  .  .  Behold,  0  Gods, 


our  works !  behold  our  egregious  handiwork, 
with  which  we  make  ourselves  honored  in 
heaven !  You  see  what  fine  productions,  not 
much  unlike  those  which  children  are  wont 
to  make,  when,  striving  to  imitate  the  works 
of  their  elders,  they  build  with  clay,  dough, 
twigs,  sticks,  and  straws.  Do  you  think  we 
shall  not  be  called  to  account  for  all  this? 
Errors,  due  to  frailty  or  to  injudicious  levity, 
can  be  suffered  and  easily  condoned:  but 
what  mercy,  what  pity  shall  be  shown  to 
errors  which  are  committed  by  those  who, 
appointed  presidents  of  justice,  contribute 
by  their  most  criminal  faults  even  greater 
errors  in  honoring,  rewarding,  and  exalting 
in  heaven  crimes  and  criminals  together?  I 
confess  my  sins,  0  Gods ;  mine  and  yours 
cannot  be  hidden.  Let  us  provide,  therefore, 
for  our  future;  because,  although  Fate  has 
not  granted  that  we  should  not  fall,  yet  it 
has  granted  that  we  may  rise.  Let  us  be 
converted  to  Justice,  in  departing  from  which 
we  departed  from  ourselves,  so  that,  being 
no  longer  Gods,  we  are  no  longer  ourselves. 
And  first  of  all  let  us  reform  ourselves  in 
heaven,  which,  intellectually,  is  within  us, 
and  then  in  the  sensible  world  which  presents 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    109 

itself  corporeally  to  our  eyes.  If  we  would 
alter  our  condition,  let  us  change  our 
manners !  Let  us  purify  the  inner  affection, 
and  the  outward  reformation  will  be  easy !  I 
perceive  that  you  desire  to  do  this:  three  days 
hence  we  will  meet  again  and  confer  upon 
the  speedy  cleansing  of  our  celestial  abodes." 
At  the  appointed  time  the  Gods  reconvene. 
The  examination  begins  with  the  northern 
part  of  the  firmament.  "What  disposition 
will  you  make  of  the  Bear?"  asks  Jove. 
Momus  replies  that  the  Gods  have  long  been 
disgusted  that  the  most  illustrious  position 
should  be  occupied  by  that  beast,  and  that 
the  star  to  which  all  sailors  in  earth  and  all 
contemplators  in  heaven  look  for  guidance 
should  be  placed  in  her  tail,  to  satisfy  one  of 
J  uno's  whims ;  because  Nature,  which  proba- 
bly is  better  informed  than  Juno,  has  denied 
a  tail  to  bears.  Therefore  let  the  creature  be 
removed.  "  Away  with  it,  whithersoever  you 
please,"  says  Jove,  "either  to  the  bearish 
English  or  to  the  Orsini  or  Cesarini  of  Rome 
—  for  she  enjoys  a  city  life."  "Let  her  be 
shut  up  in  the  cloisters  at  Berne,"  pleads 
Juno.  "Anywhere  she  chooses,"  Jove  con- 
tinues, "  so  long  as  she  vacates  that  most 


110    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

eminent  seat,  which  I  desire  Truth  to  occupy 
henceforth."  "  But  what  shall  we  do  with 
the  Great  Bear?"  Momus  asks.  "As  she  is 
old,  let  her  go  as  chaperon  to  the  little  one, 
and  take  care  that  she  doesn't  corrupt  her." 
"  How  shall  we  dispose  of  the  Dragon  ?  "  says 
Mars.  "  Oh,  he 's  a  useless  beast !  "  exclaims 
Momus ;  "  we  '11  send  him  to  Ireland,  or  to 
one  of  the  Orcades,  to  pasture."  In  place  of 
the  Dragon,  Jove  decrees  that  Prudence  shall 
sit.  Then  they  dispatch  Cepheus,  and  sum- 
mon Wisdom  to  succeed  him. 

Jove  next  decides  that  Law  shall  occupy 
the  seat  from  which  they  dismiss  Arctophy- 
lax,  that  the  Northern  Crown  shall  remain 
till  some  invincible  hero  shall  deserve  it  by 
bringing  peace  to  afflicted  Europe.  "  To  ef- 
fect that  't  were  enough,"  quoth  Momus,  "to 
put  an  end  to  that  cowardly  sect  of  pedants 
who,  without  well-doing,  according  to  law 
divine  and  natural,  esteem  themselves  and 
wish  to  be  esteemed  worshipers  pleasing  to 
the  Gods.  They  say  that  to  do  good  is  good, 
to  do  wrong  is  bad ;  but  no  matter  how  much 
good  one  may  do,  or  how  much  evil  one  may 
not  do,  that  one  does  not  so  become  worthy 
and  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  the  Gods  but  by 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    111 

hoping  and  believing  according  to  their  cat- 
echism. The  worst  is,  that  they  defame  us, 
saying  that  this  is  an  institution  of  the  Gods, 
and  with  this  they  blame  deeds  and  fruits, 
even  dubbing  them  defects  and  vices.  They 
heed  not  righteous  acts.  Further,  whilst  they 
pretend  that  their  whole  care  is  concerning 
things  invisible,  which  neither  they  nor  any 
one  else  ever  understood,  they  say  that  to 
acquire  that  knowledge  only  Destiny  suffices, 
—  Destiny  which  is  inscrutable,  —  by  means 
of  certain  favors  and  fantasies,  on  which  the 
Gods  especially  feed." 

"  Then,"  says  Mercury,  "since  there  is  not 
freedom  of  choice,  those  who  are  predestined 
to  regard  good  works  as  unnecessary  ought 
not  to  be  wroth  with  those  who  are  pre- 
destined to  assert  that  good  works  are  as 
necessary  as  faith."  "  All  who  have  natural 
judgment,"  says  Apollo,  "  judge  the  laws 
to  be  good  because  they  have  for  their  ob- 
ject practice,  and  those  are  best  which  give 
occasion  to  the  best  practice.  Some  laws  are 
accorded  by  us,  some  are  framed  by  men,  for 
the  convenience  of  human  life;  and  since 
some  men  never  see  the  fruit  of  their  merits 
in  this  life,  there  is  promised  them  the  good 


112    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

and  evil,  the  reward  and  punishment,  of  an- 
other life,  according  to  their  works.  Of  all 
who  believe  and  teach  otherwise,  these  alone 
deserve  to  be  driven  from  heaven  and  earth, 
and  to  be  exterminated  as  the  plague  of  the 
world,  not  more  worthy  of  mercy  than  are 
wolves,  bears,  and  serpents."  Saturn  main- 
tains that  this  idle  race,  who  rely  for  salva- 
tion upon  faith  instead  of  virtuous  acts, 
should,  after  their  death,  inhabit  the  bodies 
of  swine,  or  of  oysters,  for  many  hundred 
years ;  but  Mercury  replies,  that  in  justice 
the  punishment  of  idleness  should  be  toil. 
"  Therefore  it  will  be  better  that  they  be- 
come asses,  whereby  they  may  keep  their 
ignorance  and  be  cut  off  from  idleness,  and 
in  reward  for  continuous  work  have  scanty 
hay  and  straw  for  food,  and  many  a  cudgeling 
for  guerdon."  All  the  Gods  approve  ;  Jove 
consents,  adding  that  this  particular  crown 
shall  be  replaced  by  an  ideal  crown  from 
which  infinite  others  shall  proceed,  and  that 
the  ideal  sword  be  joined  with  it.  By  which 
Jove  means  universal  judgment. 

Momus  now  points  to  Hercules,  and  asks 
Jove,  "  What  shall  we  do  with  that  bastard 
of  yours  ? "  Thereupon  Jove  feels  compas- 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    113 

sion  for  the  hero,  who,  he  says,  is  not  blame- 
able  for  his  origin,  and  who  bore  himself 
nobly  upon  earth.  Chance  made  him  human; 
by  his  own  deeds  he  approved  himself  a 
worthy  son  of  Jove ;  still,  although  no  excep- 
tion can  be  made  in  his  favor,  when  he 
returns  to  earth  he  shall  have  honor  and 
reputation  not  less  than  if  he  remained  in 
heaven.  "I  ordain  that  he  be  a  sort  of  ter- 
restrial god."  "  So  be  it !  "  exclaim  many  of 
the  Gods.  "  Many  new  monsters  have  arisen 
down  there,"  continues  Jove;  "  let  him  abol- 
ish them ! " 

When  Wisdom  had  reached  this  point  in 
her  narration  she  beheld  Mercury  approach- 
ing; so  she  bade  Saulino  farewell  till  the 
morrow,  and  turned  to  greet  the  celestial 
messenger.  He  told  her  that  he  could  not 
long  delay,  on  an  errand  to  earth.  "What 
business  have  you  there?"  asked  Wisdom. 
"  Jove  has  commanded,"  Mercury  explains, 
"  that  to-day  at  noon  two  melons  among  the 
others  in  Franzino's  melon  patch  become 
perfectly  ripe,  but  that  they  be  not  picked 
until  three  days  hence,  when  they  won't  be 
good  to  eat.  He  wills  further  that  Albenzio's 
wife  Nasta,  while  crimping  her  forehead 


114    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

curls,  shall,  from  having  heated  the  iron  too 
hot,  burn  fifty-seven  hairs,  but  not  her  head, 
and  that  this  time  she  shall  not  swear  when 
she  smells  the  singeing,  but  bear  it  patiently. 
Further,  that  at  fifteen  minutes  past  twelve, 
by  a  movement  of  the  tongue,  which  she 
shall  have  rubbed  over  her  palate  for  the 
fourth  time,  Fiurulo's  old  woman  shall  lose 
her  third  molar  tooth  on  her  right-hand 
under  jaw,  that  it  shall  drop  without  bleed- 
ing or  pain,  because  it  has  reached  the  end 
of  its  aching,  which  has  lasted  just  seventeen 
annual  lunar  revolutions.  Also,  that  of  seven 
moles  which  started  four  days  ago  from  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  taking  different  roads 
upward,  two  shall  come  to  the  surface  at  the 
same  time,  one  at  exactly  noon,  another 
fifteen  minutes  and  nineteen  seconds  later ; 
distant  from  each  other  three  paces  one  foot 
and  half  an  inch,  in  the  garden  of  Anton 
Fainano ;  the  time  and  place  of  the  others  will 
be  decreed  hereafter." 

Wisdom  was  surprised  at  this  list  of  special 
providences.  She  wished  to  know  how  Mer- 
cury would  have  time  to  accomplish  not  only 
these  but  innumerable  others ;  so  he  explained 
to  her  the  relation  of  the  infinite  to  the  finite. 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    115 

Jove  is  not,  as  some  philosophers  presume, 
overburdened  with  cares.  He  "  does  all  with- 
out occupation,  solicitude,  and  hindrance,  be- 
cause he  has  numberless  species  and  infinite 
individuals ;  he  foresees,  in  issuing  his  com- 
mand, and  having  issued  his  command, — 
not  in  a  certain  successive  order,  but  in  a 
twinkling  and  simultaneously,  and  he  does  not 
operate  by  efficient  causes  one  by  one,  with 
many  actions,  and  by  these  actions  come  to 
infinite  acts ;  but  the  whole  past,  present,  and 
future  he  creates  with  one  act,  simple  and 
single.  Unity  is  in  infinite  number,  and  infin- 
ite number  in  unity.  Where  there  is  not  unity 
there  is  no  number,  finite  or  infinite ;  where 
there  is  number  there  must  be  unity.  There- 
fore, he  who,  not  accidentally  (like  some  par- 
ticular intellects),  but  essentially  (like  the 
Universal  Intelligence),  comprehends  unity, 
comprehends  the  unit  and  number,  finite  and 
infinite,  the  end  and  term  of  all ;  and  he  can 
do  all,  not  only  in  the  universal,  but  in  the 
particular  besides.  And  this  I  am  constrained 
to  reveal  to  you,"  Mercury  added,  "lest, 
through  the  many  afflictions  by  which  you 
are  perturbed,  you  be  too  easily  lured  to 
ponder  not  too  piously  the  government  of  the 


116    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

Gods:  a  government  which,  at  the  end  of 
ends,  is  just  and  sacrosanct,  although  things 
may  appear,  as  you  see,  very  confused.  Do 
not  suppose  that  anything  in  the  universe  is 
trivial;  every  meanest  thing  is  most  important 
in  the  order  of  the  whole  and  of  the  universe; 
for  the  great  things  are  composed  of  the 
small,  and  the  small  of  the  least,  and  these 
of  individuals  and  minims.  Divine  cognition 
does  not  resemble  ours,  which  follows  after 
things;  but  it  precedes  things,  and  is  in  all 
of  them,  so  that,  if  it  were  not  found  in  them, 
there  would  be  neither  primary  nor  secondary 
causes."  Upon  this,  after  a  few  parting 
words,  Mercury  sets  forth  on  his  mission. 

Wisdom  opens  her  second  dialogue  with 
Saulino,  by  stating  in  very  noble  language 
why  Truth  is  entitled  to  the  most  eminent 
post  in  heaven.  "  Truth  is  that  entity  which 
is  inferior  to  none  other:  because,  if  you 
would  imagine  anything  before  Truth,  you 
must  suppose  it  to  be  other  than  Truth; 
therefore  it  cannot  be  true,  and  must  be  false, 
nothing,  non-existent.  Nor  can  anything  be 
after  Truth;  because  if  it  comes  after,  it 
must  come  without  her.  So  Truth  is  before 
all  things,  with  all  things,  and  after  all  things. 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    117 

She  is  ideal,  natural,  and  rational;  meta- 
physical, physical,  and  logical.  But  truly  this 
Truth  which  you  perceive  by  the  senses,  and 
are  able  to  understand  by  the  height  of  your 
intellect,  is  not  the  supreme  and  primal  Truth, 
but  a  certain  figure  and  image  and  splendor 
of  that  which  is  superior  to  Jove,  the  fre- 
quent theme  of  our  discourse  and  the  subject 
of  our  metaphors." 

"  Most  worthily !  "  exclaims  Saulino :  "  be- 
cause Truth  is  the  most  sincere,  the  most 
divine  cause  of  all:  nay,  the  divinity  and 
sincerity,  the  goodness  and  beauty  of  all 
things,  is  Truth,  which  neither  through  vio- 
lence is  taken  away,  nor  through  antiquity 
becomes  corrupt,  nor  through  veiling  is  di- 
minished, nor  through  communication  is  dis- 
sipated ;  for  the  sense  does  not  confound  her, 
nor  time  set  wrinkles  on  her  face,  nor  space 
hide  her,  nor  night  interrupt  her,  nor  darkness 
conceal  her;  but,  by  being  more  and  more 
assailed,  more  and  more  she  revives  and 
grows;  without  defender  and  protector  she 
defends  herself,  and  therefore  she  loves  the 
fellowship  of  the  few  and  wise,  she  hates 
the  multitude,  she  reveals  herself  to  those 
only  who  seek  her  for  herself,  and  will  not 


118    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

be  declared  to  those  who  do  not  humbly 
lay  themselves  bare  before  her,  nor  to  those 
who  with  fraud  approach  her;  and  therefore 
she  dwells  most  lofty,  where  all  look  and  few 
see." 

Wisdom  next  describes  Prudence,  who  has 
a  twofold  nature,  being  called  Providence,  in 
so  far  as  she  influences  and  abides  in  superior 
principles,  and  Prudence,  in  so  far  as  she 
operates  through  us.  Wisdom,  also,  is  a  twin 
—  the  one  supra-celestial  and  ultra-mundane, 
light  and  eye ;  the  other,  earthly  and  inferior, 
but  a  participant  in  Truth ;  not  the  sun,  —  but 
the  earth,  the  moon,  and  the  star  which  shines 
by  his  light.  The  former  is  invisible,  incom- 
prehensible, indescribable,  above,  within,  and 
beyond  everything;  the  latter  is  personified 
in  heaven,  illustrated  by  men  of  genius,  com- 
municated by  words,  set  forth  by  the  arts, 
burnished  by  discussions,  outlined  by  writ- 
ings. Woe  to  those  who  do  not  seek  her  for 
herself,  or  for  the  supreme  virtue  and  love 
of  the  Deity,  who  transcends  every  Jove  and 
every  heaven,  but  in  order  to  sell  her  for 
money,  or  honors,  or  other  kind  of  gain ;  or 
not  so  much  because  they  desire  to  learn,  as 
because  they  wish  to  be  deemed  learned;  or 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    119 

to  detract  and  wrangle.  Those  who  seek  her 
to  edify  themselves  are  prudent;  the  others, 
who  study  her  to  edify  their  neighbors,  are 
humane;  those  who  seek  her  absolutely  are 
curious;  those  who  inquire  out  of  love  for 
the  supreme  and  prime  verity  are  wise,  and 
consequently  happy.  "But  why,"  asks  Sau- 
lino,  "is  there  so  great  a  diversity  among 
those  who  possess  Wisdom?  Why  do  some 
who  possess  most  seem  least  edified  ? " 
"  Whence  does  it  happen,"  Wisdom  replies, 
"that  the  sun  does  not  warm  all  those  it 
shines  upon,  and  that  sometimes  it  heats  those 
least  on  whom  it  shines  brightest  ?  " 

They  then  discuss  Law,  to  whom  Jove  has 
assigned  a  position  near  Truth,  Prudence, 
and  Wisdom.  Law  can  encounter  indignity 
only  when  she  follows  one  of  two  paths,  "  of 
which  one  is  that  of  Iniquity,  commanding 
and  proposing  unjust  things,  the  other  is 
that  of  Difficulty,  commanding  and  propos- 
ing impossible  things,  which  are  also  unjust ; 
because  there  are  two  hands  by  which  Laws 
can  enforce  every  statute :  Justice  is  one, 
Possibility  the  other ;  and  of  these,  one  mod- 
erates the  other,  since,  although  many  things 
are  possible  which  are  not  just,  nothing  is 


120    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

just  which  is  not  possible.  So  no  law  ought 
to  be  accepted  which  is  not  conformable  to 
the  practice  of  the  human  race."  Next  by 
implication  Bruno,  speaking  through  Saulino, 
condemns  celibacy,  as  an  unnatural  and  ar- 
bitrary law,  imposed  by  the  Church  of  Rome 
upon  its  clergy. 

From  Law,  Wisdom  passes  on  to  Justice, 
upon  whom  Jove  has  enjoined  the  defense 
and  care  of  the  true  law,  and  the  destruction 
of  the  iniquitous  and  false,  bidding  her  fur- 
ther to  kindle,  as  far  as  she  can,  in  human 
breasts  the  appetite  for  glory,  because  this  is 
that  sole  and  most  efficacious  incentive  which 
is  wont  to  impel  men,  and  to  heat  them  for 
those  heroic  deeds  which  increase,  preserve, 
and  fortify  the  commonwealth.  "  But,"  Sau- 
lino objects,  "  those  of  the  counterfeit  relig- 
ion call  all  these  glories  vain ;  saying  that  we 
must  glory  in  I  know  not  what  cabalistic 
tragedy."  "Never  believe,"  Wisdom  replies, 
"  that  the  Gods  in  any  way  take  interest  in 
those  things  in  which  no  man  is  interested ; 
for  the  Gods  heed  only  that  by  which  they 
may  aid  men ;  they  are  moved,  and  angered, 
by  no  word,  deed,  or  thought  of  theirs,  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  it  may  lessen  that  respect  by 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    121 

which  republics  endure.  The  Gods  would 
not  be  Gods,  i£  they  took  pleasure  or  dis- 
pleasure, sadness  or  joy,  from  anything  men 
say  or  do.  So  that  it  is  an  unworthy,  stupid, 
profane,  and  blameworthy  thing  to  suppose 
that  the  Gods  desire  the  reverence,  fear,  love, 
worship,  and  respect  of  men,  for  any  other 
good  end  and  usefulness,  save  of  men  them- 
selves ;  because,  being  most  glorious  in  them- 
selves, and  incapable  of  having  their  glory 
augmented  from  without,  they  have  made  the 
laws  not  so  much  for  receiving  glory  as  for 
communicating  glory  to  men.  Jove  wills  that, 
comparatively,  the  greatest  errors  are  those 
which  harm  the  commonwealth ;  the  lesser, 
those  which  harm  our  neighbors ;  the  least, 
those  which  happen  between  two  persons ;  and 
he  judges  as  nothing  that  fault  which  works 
no  bad  example  or  bad  effect,  but  springs  from 
an  accidental  impulse  in  the  temperament  of 
the  individual.  He  approves  penitence,  but 
not  equally  with  innocence ;  he  approves 
faith,  but  not  equally  with  doing  ;  so  of  con- 
fession, in  respect  to  correcting  and  abstain- 
ing; he  does  not  decree  that  a  man  who  vainly 
tames  his  body  shall  sit  next  to  one  who 
bridles  his  spirit;  he  does  not  distinguish 


122    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

customs  and  religion  so  much  by  variety  of 
gowns  and  differences  of  garb  as  by  the 
good  and  more  good  habits  of  virtue  and 
discipline  ;  he  praises  less  one  who  may  have 
healed  a  vile  and  worthless  cripple,  who  is 
worth  little  or  nothing  more  being  healed, 
than  another  who  may  have  freed  his  country, 
or  reformed  a  disturbed  mind.  Dear  to  the 
Gods  are  they  who  employ  the  perfection  of 
their  own  and  other  minds,  who  serve  the 
community,  and  who  expressly  attend  to  acts 
of  magnanimity,  justice,  and  mercy." 

Saulino  next  inquires  if  Jove  has  issued 
a  special  decree  against  the  temerity  of  those 
grammarians  [Protestants]  who  now  increase 
in  Europe.  "  Observe,"  replies  Wisdom, 
"  whether,  whilst  they  say  they  wish  to 
reform  the  deformed  religions  and  laws,  they 
do  not  spoil  all  the  good  there  is  in  them, 
and  confirm  and  lift  to  the  stars  all  that  is 
perverse  and  vain.  Do  they  bring  other 
fruits,  except  of  breaking  up  assemblies ;  dis- 
sipating concords ;  dissolving  unions ;  making 
sons  to  rebel  against  their  fathers,  servants 
against  their  masters,  subjects  against  their 
superiors ;  sowing  schisms  between  people 
and  people,  race  and  race,  comrade  and  com- 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    123 

rade,  brother  and  brother  ;  and  splitting  up 
families,  cities,  republics,  and  kingdoms  ?  Do 
they,  whilst  they  greet  with  peace,  bring 
wherever  they  enter  the  knife  of  division  ? 
Whilst  they  declare  themselves  the  ministers 
of  one  who  raises  the  dead  and  heals  the 
infirm,  is  it  not  they  who,  beyond  all  others 
whom  earth  feeds,  wound  the  healthy  and 
butcher  the  living,  not  so  much  with  fire  and 
sword  as  with  their  baleful  tongue?  They 
talk  of  peace  and  concord,  —  they,  among 
a  thousand  of  whom  you  will  not  find  one 
who  has  not  framed  a  catechism  of  his  own ! 
and  who  does  not  destroy  to-day  what  he 
wrote  yesterday !  "  "  We  shall  soon  see,"  says 
Saulino,  sarcastically,  "how  dexterous  these 
fellows  are  in  acquiring  an  ell  of  earth,  who 
are  so  effusive  and  prodigal  in  bestowing  the 
kingdoms  of  the  heavens !  " 

When  the  Gods  next  met,  Gods  Riches  and 
Poverty  were  heard.  Then  Fortune  came 
arrogantly  forward.  It  would  be  pusillani- 
mous for  her  to  keep  silence,  she  said,  after 
Riches  and  Poverty  had  spoken  boldly.  "I 
am  that  Goddess  divine  and  excellent,  as 
much  desired  as  sought,  and  held  so  dear, 
instead  of  whom  Jove  most  frequently  is 


124    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

thanked.  Riches  proceed  from  my  open  hand, 
but  if  I  close  my  palms,  all  the  world  weeps, 
and  cities,  kingdoms,  empires  are  turned  up- 
side down.  How  often,  too,  have  I  control 
over  Reason,  Truth,  Justice,  and  other  Gods ! " 
Momus  objected  to  all  this,  and  much  more, 
that  the  other  Gods  claimed  a  seat  in  heaven  on 
the  plea  of  good  deeds,  whereas  Fortune  ad- 
mitted to  having  wrought  evil.  "  Although 
that  were  true,"  said  she,  "  it  was  not  evil ; 
because  when  Fate  determines,  it  is  well,  done, 
and  were  my  nature  venomous  like  that  of  the 
viper,  it  would  not  be  my  fault,  but  Nature's. 
Besides,  nothing  is  absolutely  bad;  because 
the  viper  is  not  deadly  and  poisonous  to  the 
viper,  nor  the  lion  to  the  lion,  dragon  to 
dragon,  bear  to  bear ;  but  each  thing  is  bad 
in  respect  to  some  other,  just  as  you,  virtu- 
ous Gods,  are  evil  towards  the  vicious.  There- 
fore, I, — Fortune,  —  though  I  seem  evil  to- 
wards some,  am  divining  good  to  others. 
How  many  excellent  philosophers,  such  as 
Empedocles  and  Epicurus,  attribute  more  to 
me  than  to  Jove  himself ! " 

She  defended  her  cause  stoutly,  and  when 
Minerva  taunted  her  with  blindness,  she  re- 
plied that  she  had  a  good  ear  and  intellect, 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    126 

nevertheless ;  and  that,  after  all,  eyes  are  not 
the  most  necessary  organs.  Were  not  Demo- 
critus,  and  Tiresias,  and  Homer,  and  many, 
many  others,  illustrious  by  their  wisdom  or 
virtue,  blind  ?  "  Blindness  robs  me  of  nothing, 
absolutely  nothing,  needed  for  the  perfection 
of  my  being,"  she  continued.  "  Eyes  are  made 
to  distinguish  and  know  differences,  —  I  will 
not  stop  to  show  how  often  judges  are  de- 
ceived by  them,  —  but  I  am  Justice  itself,  I 
need  not  distinguish;  but,  as  all  things  are 
really  one  substance,  so  it  is  my  duty  to  place 
all  in  a  certain  equality,  to  esteem  all  alike,  and 
to  be  not  more  prompt  in  beholding  or  calling 
one  than  another,  and  not  more  disposed 
to  regale  one  than  another,  or  more  inclined 
towards  the  nearest  than  towards  the  distant. 
I  see  not  mitres,  togas,  crowns,  arts,  geniuses ; 
I  perceive  not  merits  and  demerits ;  they  are 
accidents,  not  essences.  So,  I  am  perfectly  fair. 
I  put  all  in  an  urn,  shake  them  up,  and  the 
hazard  to  him  who  gets  it !  and  who  gets  the 
good,  well  for  him — and  who  gets  the  bad, 
ill  for  him.  True,  they  complain  bitterly  of 
the  hand  which  draws  those  unequal  lots,  but, 
0  Gods,  that  comes  from  your  inequality,  in- 
iquity, and  injustice.  Yours  is  the  fault ;  yours 


126    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

be  the  blame,  because  Wisdom  does  not  com- 
municate herself  to  all  in  equal  measure; 
Temperance  dwells  in  few;  Goodness  gives 
her  largess  unequally;  Truth  shows  herself 
to  very  few.  Thus  you  other  good  deities 
are  niggardly  and  most  partial,  causing  the 
very  inequalities  you  charge  me  with.  Prud- 
ence throws  but  three  names  into  the  urn ; 
Truth  barely  one,  or  none ;  yet  you  expect 
me,  who  am  impartial,  to  choose  one  of  those 
sooner  than  one  of  900,000  others.  Do  you 
make  all  men  equal  in  virtue  and  under- 
standing, and  then  I  shall  draw  none  but 
good  lots,  and  reward  none  but  the  worthy." 
"  Nevertheless,"  Momus  argued,  "  you  would 
still  be  unjust:  because,  although  everybody 
might  be  worthy  of  a  duchy,  let  us  say,  you 
would  make  only  one  a  duke ! "  Fortune, 
smiling,  answered:  "You  talk  of  what  I 
would  be,  not  of  what  I  am :  let  us  deal  with 
facts,  and  not  with  suppositions.  You  admit 
that  I  am  just,  but  would  be  unjust;  you, 
Gods,  are  unjust,  and  would  be  just.  As  for 
that  duchy,  it  would  be  plainly  impossible 
for  all  to  have  it,  —  the  impossible  regards 
neither  justice  nor  injustice ;  but  it  is  pos- 
sible that  all  should  have  an  equal  chance  to 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    127 

•win  it,  and  that  I  would  impartially  give 
them." 

"Fortune  has  argued  right  cleverly,"  quoth 
Jove,  "  and  well  deserves  a  seat  in  heaven ! 
But  since  she  is  in  all  concerns,  she  shall  not 
be  restricted  to  a  single  abode,  neither  here 
nor  on  earth.  Let  the  habitations  of  the  others 
be  open  to  her ;  since  all  obeys  the  destiny 
of  mutation,  all  passes  through  the  urn, 
through  the  revolution,  and  through  the 
hand  of  your  Excellency." 

After  this  decision,  with  which  none  of  the 
Gods  quarreled,  Jove  assigned  Hercules's  seat 
to  Strength.  Then  in  place  of  the  Lyre, 
Memory,  and  the  Nine  Muses  —  Arithmetic, 
Geometry,  Music,  Logic,  Poesy,  Astrology, 
Physic,  Metaphysic,  and  Ethic  —  were  estab- 
lished. Next,  Perseus  had  honorable  dismissal, 
being  commanded  to  return  to  Earth  and 
slay  the  new  Gorgons  there.  Instead  of  him, 
Diligence  (or  Industry)  occupied  the  shining 
constellation.  "Overcome  all  things,  even 
thyself!"  said  Jove;  "toil,  but  without 
knowing  that  thou  toilest !  The  highest  per- 
fection is  not  to  feel  weariness  and  pain  when 
we  are  enduring  weariness  and  pain.  Up  then ! 
if  thou  be  a  virtue,  busy  not  thyself  with  base 


128    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

things,  nor  with  frivolous,  nor  with  vain 
things !  Difficulty  shall  flee  thee.  Thou  shalt 
drive  off  misfortune,  and  seize  fortune  by  the 
forelock !  Vigilance  be  thy  sentinel,  to  guard 
thee  against  foolish  undertakings,  to  warn 
thee  that  it  is  more  grievous  to  have  used 
thine  arms  in  vain  than  with  hands  full  to 
have  carried  stones."  Diligence  accepted  her 
mission  nobly,  exclaiming :  "  Why  do  we  idle 
and  sleep  in  life,  when  we  must,  alas !  idle  so 
much  and  sleep  so  long  in  death  ?  For  even 
though  we  expect  another  life,  or  other  mode 
of  being  ourselves,  it  will  not  be  this  same 
life  of  ours :  for  this  passes  away  forever,  and 
hopes  for  no  return.  Hope,  why  dost  thou 
not  spur  me  ;  why  dost  thou  not  incite  me  ? 
Come,  bid  me  to  await  a  happy  result  from 
difficulties,  if  I  be  not  too  hasty,  or  cease 
from  my  work  too  soon;  do  not  allow  me  to 
promise  myself  rewards  for  as  long  as  I  may 
live,  but  for  as  long  as  I  shall  live  nobly ! " 

Mercury  now  appears,  saying  that  he  was 
sent  by  Jove  to  repair  the  destruction 
wrought  by  Discord  in  the  Parthenopean 
Kingdom.  Boundless  Avarice,  which  works 
under  the  pretext  of  wishing  to  maintain  re- 
ligion, was  the  cause.  As  a  remedy  she 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    129 

"  would  increase  the  punishment  of  the  de- 
linquents, so  that  many  innocents  suffer  the 
same  penalty  as  one  criminal ;  and  thus  the 
prince  grows  fatter  and  fatter."  Wisdom 
says :  "  'T  is  natural  that  sheep,  which  have 
a  wolf  for  governor,  should  be  punished  by 
being  devoured  by  him  " ;  and  Mercury  re- 
plies, "  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  some- 
times merely  his  great  hunger  and  gluttony 
do  not  make  them  culpable.  And  it  is  against 
every  law  that  through  the  fault  of  their 
father,  the  lambs  and  their  mother  should 
be  punished."  Wisdom  continues  :  "  Verily, 
I  have  never  found  such  a  judgment,  except 
among  savage  barbarians ;  I  think  it  was  first 
discovered  among  the  Jews,  for  they  are  a 
race  so  pestilent,  leprous,  and  generally  so 
pernicious,  that  they  deserve  to  be  blotted 
out  rather  than  born." 

Betimes  next  morning,  Wisdom  continues 
her  dialogue  with  Saulino,  saying  that  Dili- 
gence had  scarcely  finished,  and  was  moving 
toward  the  place  quitted  by  Perseus,  when 
Idleness  insisted  on  being  heard.  Jove  then 
decreed  that  Idleness  should  never  be  pleas- 
urable and  honored,  except  as  a  change  from 
Toil,  or  as  giving  Diligence  the  opportunity 


130    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

to  meditate  fresh  achievements.  "  I  depute 
you  to  be  master  of  old  age,  whose  eyes  you 
shall  often  turn  backward,  and  if  she  have 
not  left  worthy  traces,  you  shall  cause  her  to 
be  uneasy  and  sad,  and  to  dread  the  coming 
judgment  and  the  impending  season,  which 
lead  to  the  inexorable  tribunal  of  Rhada- 
manthus ;  and  thus  she  shall  feel  the  horrors 
of  death,  before  death  comes."  So  Idleness 
was  dispatched. 

"  We  must  dispose  of  the  other  seats  more 
rapidly,"  quoth  Saturn,  "for  the  evening 
approaches."  Most  of  the  Gods  showed  their 
approval  by  a  nod,  and  the  proceedings  were 
more  active.  I  must  pass  over  much,  but  you 
must  hear  what  Jove  said  about  Germany. 
"It  is  the  dear  delightful  country,"  said  he, 
"  where  sauce-pans  are  shields,  pots  and  ket- 
tles are  helmets,  bones  sheathed  in  salt  meat 
are  swords,  tumblers,  jugs,  and  goblets  are 
trumpets,  kegs  and  barrels  are  drums,  the 
drinking-table  is  the  battle-field ;  where  wine- 
cellars,  dramshops,  and  taverns  are  the  fort- 
resses, bulwarks,  castles,  and  bastions.  The 
people  there  have  generally  eye-troubles,  and 
drink  incomparably  more  than  they  eat. 
Nevertheless,  I  send  the  Eagle  to  Germany, 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    131 

and  in  place  of  him  here  stahlish  Magnanim- 
ity, Magnificence,  and  Generosity." 

In  place  of  Pegasus,  Jove  summoned  Divine 
Rapture  and  Prophecy ;  for  Andromeda,  he 
substituted  Hope,  "  that  most  holy  buckler  of 
the  human  heart,  that  divine  corner-stone 
of  all  the  edifices  of  goodness,  that  most 
stanch  shelter  to  Truth  " ;  the  Triangle  he 
caused  to  give  way  to  Good  Faith  and  Sin- 
cerity. "  Behold,"  said  Minerva,  "  to  what  a 
pass  the  world  is  reduced,  where  it  has  be- 
come a  habit  and  proverb,  that  to  reign  one 
must  not  keep  faith,  and  that  it  is  right  to 
deceive  him  who  deceives."  "I  decree  that 
this  be  not  lawful,"  said  Jove  sternly, 
"although  it  be  the  law  of  some  beastly  and 
barbarous  Jew  or  Saracen  [Bruno  means 
the  Jesuits],  and  not  of  a  civilized  and 
heroic  Greek  or  Roman,  that  sometimes  and 
with  some  persons,  merely  for  selfish  conven- 
ience, it  is  proper  to  keep  faith,  making  her 
the  minister  of  tyranny  and  treachery." 
Saulino  interrupts  to  say,  "There  is  not, 
Wisdom,  an  offense  more  infamous,  rascally, 
and  unworthy  of  pity,  than  this  which  is 
done  to  one  man  by  another,  because  one  has 
trusted  the  other  and  been  deceived  by  him ! " 


132    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

Wisdom  continues :  The  Gods  next  took 
counsel  concerning  the  Ram,  whom  Jove 
relegated  to  England,  where  his  breed  is  so 
handsome,  white,  and  fat;  the  Bull  was 
allowed  to  follow  him,  unless  he  preferred  to 
dwell  in  Turin.  In  their  place  came  Emula- 
tion and  Zeal.  Over  Capricorn  there  was  much 
discussion.  Momus  declared  that  he  had  led 
the  Egyptians  to  honor  the  living  images  of 
beasts.  "That  seems  not  a  crime  to  me," 
Jove  replied,  "  because  animals  and  plants 
are  the  living  effects  of  Nature,  who  is,  as 
you  ought  to  know,  nothing  else  than  God 
in  things.  Nevertheless,  divers  living  things 
represent  divers  Gods  and  Powers ;  because, 
besides  absolute  existence,  which  they  have, 
they  share  the  existence  communicated  to  all 
things,  according  to  their  measure  and  capac- 
ity. Hence  all  is  God,  though  not  totally, 
but  he  is  in  all  things  more  or  less.  There- 
fore you  will  find  Mars  more  efficaciously  in 
some  natural  substance  —  as  in  the  viper, 
or  scorpion,  or  onion  —  than  in  any  sort 
of  picture  or  statue.  Thus  let  the  crocus, 
the  narcissus,  the  heliotrope,  the  cock,  the 
lion,  remind  you  of  the  Sun ;  thus  should 
all  things  reveal  to  you  in  some  degree 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    133 

some  of  the  Gods."  "  That  is  true,"  Momus 
added.  "  But  this  I  deplore,  that  some 
senseless  and  stupid  idolaters  seek  for  the 
divinity,  of  which  they  have  no  concep- 
tion, in  the  carcases  of  dead,  inanimate 
things"  [Catholic  worship  of  relics].  "Let 
that  not  irritate  you,"  said  Iris,  "  because 
Fate  has  appointed  the  sequence  of  darkness 
and  light."  "  But  the  evil  is,"  replied  Momus, 
"  that  they  hold  it  for  sure  that  they  stand 
in  the  light."  "  Oh,  darkness  would  not  be 
darkness,  if  they  recognized  it  as  such,"  said 
Iris.  "  That  worship  of  the  Egyptians  was 
not  a  mere  empty  ceremony :  it  enabled  them, 
by  reason  of  profound  magic,  to  pass  through 
certain  natural  objects  in  which  the  Deity 
was  latent  in  some  measure  and  to  commun- 
icate with  the  Gods.  Hence,  for  victory  they 
poured  their  libations  to  Jove  the  Magnani- 
mous, as  represented  in  the  eagle;  for  prud- 
ence in  their  affairs,  they  sacrificed  to  Jove 
the  Sagacious,  as  represented  in  the  serpent, 
and  so  on." 

Saulino  objects  that  Jove  was  never  named 
in  Egyptian  worship,  and  came  long  after- 
wards among  the  Greeks,  but  Wisdom  an- 
swers, "  Let  not  the  Greek  name  bother  you ; 


134    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

because  I  speak  according  to  the  most  general 
custom,  and  because  even  among  the  Greeks 
the  names  are  fictitious ;  for  all  know  that 
Jove  was  a  Cretan  king,  a  mortal  man,  whose 
body,  like  all  other  men's,  rotted  or  was 
burned.  Venus  was  a  mortal  woman,  beyond 
telling  beautiful,  and  Queen  of  Cyprus.  The 
same  applies  to  all  the  other  Gods  who  are 
known  as  men." 

Saulino  inquiring,  "How,  then,  were  they 
invoked  and  adored?"  Wisdom  says:  "I  will 
tell  you.  Men  did  not  adore  Jove  as  if  he 
were  the  Deity,  but  they  adored  the  Deity 
as  it  was  revealed  in  Jove :  because,  seeing 
a  man  in  whom  majesty,  justice,  and  magna- 
nimity shone  forth,  they  believed  that  a  mag- 
nanimous, just,  and  benign  god  dwelt  in  him, 
and  they  ordered  and  put  in  practice  that 
such  a  god,  or  the  Deity,  by  as  much  as  he 
thus  communicated  himself,  should  be  called 
Jove.  So  you  see  that  crocodiles,  cocks,  and 
onions  were  never  worshiped,  but  the  Gods 
and  the  Deity  in  them.  And  though  we  ap- 
prehend the  Deity  piecemeal,  in  divers  objects 
and  creatures,  yet  is  it  one :  as  it  diffuses  and 
communicates  itself  in  innumerable  modes,  so 
it  has  innumerable  names,  each  mode  to  be 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    135 

sought  in  appropriate  fashion,  with  innumer- 
able rites,  because  from  the  Deity  we  derive 
countless  kinds  of  grace.  In  order  to  this  are 
needed  that  wisdom  and  judgment,  that  art, 
industry,  and  use  of  intellectual  light,  which 
from  time  to  time  is  more  or  less  shed  upon 
Earth;  we  call  this  magic,  which  when  it 
touches  supernatural  principles  is  divine ; 
and  when  it  concerns  the  contemplation  of 
Nature,  and  the  scrutiny  of  her  secrets,  is 
natural,  and  is  called  intermediary  and  math- 
ematical ;  and  when  it  studies  the  motives 
and  acts  of  the  soul  —  the  horizon  of  the 
corporeal  and  spiritual  —  it  is  spiritual  and 
intellectual." 

Saulino  asks  :  "  Then  the  end  of  all  is  that 
all  Deity  springs  from  one  Source  :  the  several 
Gods  are  but  emanations  from  that,  as  mirrors 
reflect  the  primal  light  of  the  Sun?"  and 
Wisdom  responds :  "  That  is  true.  So  that 
God,  as  absolute,  deals  not  with  us,  excepting 
in  so  much  as  he  communicates  himself  to 
the  processes  of  Nature,  and  is  more  intimate 
in  them  than  Nature  is  herself  ;  therefore, 
if  he  is  not  very  Nature,  he  is  certainly  the 
nature  of  Nature;  and  the  soul  of  the  Soul 
of  the  World,  if  he  is  not  that  Soul  itself. 


136    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

Do  you  not  recall  the  lament  of  Hermes 
Trismegistus?  'Our  land  of  Egypt,'  he  said, 
'  is  the  temple  of  the  world !  But,  alas !  the 
time  will  come  when  Egypt  shall  seem  to  have 
vainly  been  the  religious  worshiper  of  the 
Divinity ;  but  the  Divinity,  migrating  back 
to  heaven,  shall  leave  Egypt  deserted,  and 
this  holy  place  will  remain  widowed  of  every 
religion,  from  being  bereft  of  the  presence  of 
the  Gods;  wherefore  there  will  succeed  a 
strange  and  barbarous  people,  without  relig- 
ion, piety,  law,  or  any  cult !  0  Egypt,  Egypt, 
of  thy  religions  there  shall  be  heard  only 
the  fables,  incredible  even  to  the  generations 
hereafter,  to  whom  there  will  be  none  to  nar- 
rate thy  pious  achievements,  except  the  letters 
graven  in  stones,  which  speak  not  to  Gods 
and  men, — for  these  will  be  dead,  and  the 
Divinity  translated  to  heaven,  —  but  to  Scyth- 
ians and  Indians,  and  others  of  like  savage 
nature !  Darkness  shall  overpower  the  light, 
death  shall  be  deemed  more  useful  than  life, 
none  shall  lift  his  eyes  to  heaven,  the  religious 
man  shall  be  held  insane,  the  impious  shall 
be  adjudged  prudent,  the  wrathful  strong, 
the  most  wicked  good  !  Only  pernicious  angels 
shall  remain,  who,  mingling  with  men,  shall 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    137 

force  them,  wretched  ones !  to  dare  every 
crime  as  if  it  were  justice,  giving  cause  to 
wars,  rapine,  fraud,  and  all  other  things  con- 
trary to  the  soul  and  natural  justice ;  and 
this  shall  be  the  old  age,  and  the  disorder, 
and  the  irreligion  of  the  world.  But  doubt 
not ;  since  God,  the  lord  and  father,  governor 
of  the  world,  shall  by  water  or  by  fire,  by  ills 
or  by  pestilence,  put  an  end  to  this  stain, 
calling  back  the  pure  and  ancient  counten- 
ance.'" 

"  But  I  have  digressed  too  far.  After 
longer  conference,  Jove  assigned  to  Con- 
templation the  post  of  Capricorn.  Aquarius 
was  succeeded  by  Temperance,  and  the 
Whale,  who  served  as  galley,  coach,  or  taber- 
nacle to  Jonah,  by  Tranquillity  of  Mind. 
Then  they  reached  Orion.  'Let  me  dispose 
of  him,'  cried  Momus.  'He's  a  rare  fellow; 
for  he  can  work  miracles,  and  walk  on  the 
waves  of  the  sea  without  sinking  in,  or  wetting 
his  feet.  Let  us  send  him  among  men,  and 
let  him  make  them  believe  all  that  he  will  — 
that  white  is  black ;  that  human  intelligence, 
where  it  seems  to  see  clearest,  is  blind;  that 
the  law  of  Nature  is  ribald;  that  Nature  and 
God  are  opposed ;  that  the  Divinity  is  a  good 


138    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

mother  to  all  the  Greeks,  and  a  cruel  step- 
dame  to  all  other  nations,  and  that  no  one 
can  become  pleasing  to  the  Gods  except  by 
becoming  Grecianized;  because  the  biggest 
rascal  in  Greece,  being  a  member  of  the  chosen 
people  of  the  Gods,  is  incomparably  better 
than  the  most  just  and  magnanimous  Roman, 
or  citizen  of  any  other  land.  And  he  will 
persuade  them  that  philosophy  and  all  con- 
templation, and  all  magic,  which  might  make 
them  like  to  us  Gods,  are  nothing  but  follies ; 
that  every  heroic  act  is  nothing  more  than 
baseness,  and  that  ignorance  is  the  fairest 
science  in  the  world,  because  it  is  acquired 
without  fatigue,  and  does  not  subject  the  soul 
to  melancholy.  But  beware,  0  Gods,  lest  he, 
having  caught  the  prey,  keep  it  for  himself, 
saying  that  great  Jove  is  not  Jove,  but  that 
Orion  is  Jove,  and  the  Gods  are  only  chimeras 
and  fantasies/  Minerva  did  not  believe  that 
any  impostor  could  bring  Jove  into  disrepute ; 
then  the  Thunderer  decreed  that  Orion  should 
be  dispatched  to  Earth,  but  that  he  should  be 
deprived  of  his  power  of  working  miracles 
and  similar  sleights,  which  serve  no  purpose. 
Afterwards,  with  little  debate,  they  rid  heaven 
of  the  Hare,  the  Cup,  the  Hound,  and  the 


EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT    139 

remaining  unworthinesses,  and  Jove  declared 
that  the  crown  should  be  bestowed  upon 
Henry  III  of  France,  who  loves  peace  and 
preserves  his  people,  so  far  as  he  can,  in  tran- 
quillity and  devotion.  Then,  evening  being 
come,  the  whole  company  of  the  Gods  ad- 
journed to  supper,  satisfied  in  their  work, 
and  Jove  commanded  that  the  Southern  Fish 
be  immediately  cooked  au  gratin,  for  their 
delectation." 

Even  so  slight  a  summary  as  this  of  "The 
Expulsion  of  the  Beast  Triumphant "  shows 
how  modern,  how  contemporaneous,  Bruno 
was  in  his  attitude  towards  many  of  the  deep- 
est problems  of  life.  Like  Spinoza,  he  was 
a  "God-intoxicated  man,"  and  he  felt — what 
many  say  but  do  not  feel — the  sublimity  of 
being  endowed  with  existence  in  an  infinite 
and  eternal  universe.  By  his  sense  of  the  con- 
tinuity and  progressive  development  of  the 
human  race,  by  his  application  of  the  com- 
parative method  to  various  religions,  by  his 
rejection  of  the  miraculous,  above  all,  by  his 
recognition  that  the  various  ideals  which  men 
at  different  times  have  worshiped  as  God 
have  been  but  the  personification  of  certain 


140    EXPULSION  OF  THE  BEAST  TRIUMPHANT 

human  qualities,  or  of  qualities  animal  rather 
than  human,  Giordano  Bruno  was  so  far  in 
advance  of  his  age  as  to  be,  in  these  respects, 
level  with  our  own.  From  the  heaven  depicted 
in  many  of  our  creeds  he  would  soon  find 
many  beasts  to  be  expelled. 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO 
CESARESCO 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO 
CESARESCO1 

WHEN  women  take  so  readily  to  novel-writ- 
ing, in  which  the  fortune  and  psychology 
of  imaginary  persons  are  their  subject,  why 
have  they  so  little  desire,  or  power,  to  por- 
tray the  characters,  motives,  and  acts  of  real 
men  and  women  ?  Why  have  they  achieved 
so  little,  so  regrettably  little,  as  historians  or 
as  biographers.  This  question  recurred  to  me 
again  and  again  in  reading  the  recent  vol- 
ume of  "  Lombard  Studies,"  2  by  Countess 
Evelyn  Martinengo  Cesaresco,  the  only  liv- 
ing English  woman  of  letters,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  who  has  succeeded  as  a  writer  both  of 
biography  and  of  essays.  So  little  has  been 
made  public  about  the  career  of  this  remark- 
able woman,  whose  position  among  her  liter- 
ary contemporaries  is  now  assured,  that  an 
outline  of  it  may  be  welcome. 

Evelyn  Carrington  was  born  in  1852,  her 
father  being  the  Very  Reverend  Henry  Car- 

1  The  Nation,  January  15,  1903. 

2  Lombard  Studies  (London  :  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1902). 


144     COUNTESS   MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

rington,  Dean  of  Booking,  Braintree,  and  her 
mother,  Juanita,  daughter  of  Captain  Hasel- 
dene  Lyall,  of  the  Royal  Navy.  The  Car- 
ringtons  are  an  old  English  family,  tracing 
back  to  Norman  origins :  the  Lyalls  are  Scotch, 
the  Red  Comyn,  Bruce's  rival,  being  among 
their  forerunners,  and  the  Napiers  among 
their  recent  kindred.  More  important  than 
remote  inheritance,  however,  is  the  fact  that 
Dean  Carrington's  mother  was  Pauline  Belli, 
whose  father,  Giovanni  Belli,  served  as  sec- 
retary to  Warren  Hastings  in  India  and 
there  became  acquainted  with  Sir  Edmund 
Carrington,  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  Ceylon. 
Pauline  Belli  and  her  two  sisters  —  one  of 
whom  married  Dr.  Howley,  subsequently 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  —  were  great 
London  beauties  in  their  day,  and  Pauline's 
portrait  by  Lawrence  will  convince  whoever 
sees  it  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum 
that  she  deserved  her  reputation.  When  we 
add  that  the  Belli  had  intermarried  with  the 
Spanish  Bivars,  descendants  of  the  Cid,  be- 
lievers in  heredity  will  find  no  difficulty  in 
proving  that  Evelyn  Carrington,  with  such 
a  mixture  of  ancestry,  was  predestined  to  be 
a  cosmopolite. 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO     145 

An  accident  in  childhood,  however,  seems 
to  have  been  more  directly  responsible  for 
her  development.  When  she  was  seven  years 
old  she  suffered  from  a  sunstroke,  which  for- 
tunately saved  her  from  being  put  through 
the  conventional  education  of  English  gen- 
tlemen's daughters.  Consecutive  study  was 
forbidden  ;  she  spent  much  time  out  of  doors, 
and  had  many  and  strange  pets  —  her  fond- 
ness for  animals,  as  appears  in  many  places 
in  her  works,  being  almost  as  strong  as  her 
love  of  the  chief  human  concerns.  She  had 
a  nook  to  herself  in  her  father's  study, 
and  there  she  browsed  at  will  —  no  doubt 
more  under  his  direction  than  she  imagined. 
Shakespeare  she  spelled  out  for  herself. 
This  training,  prolonged  through  childhood 
and  youth,  seems  shockingly  desultory  to 
the  devotees  of  routine  pedagogy;  but  in 
her  case  it  was  marvelously  successful.  By 
the  time  she  grew  up,  she  knew  far  more 
of  English  literature  than  most  young 
women,  and  she  had,  besides,  command  of 
French,  German,  Italian,  Latin,  and  Greek, 
using  them  with  the  true  scholar's  ease.  Her 
best  teaching  came  from  her  father,  a  man 
of  wide  learning,  who  has  made,  but  not 


146    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

printed,  a  metrical  version  of  the  Greek  dra- 
matists, and  whose  published  translations  — 
Victor  Hugo's  "Poems,"  and  "An  Antho- 
logy of  French  Poetry" — show  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  French  and  unusual  metrical 
facility. 

Besides  book  learning,  the  daughter  got 
from  her  father  an  intense  enthusiasm  for  the 
ideals  of  liberty  —  those  ideals  which  thrilled 
every  generous  heart  in  the  fifties  and  sixties 
but  which  have  been  temporarily  eclipsed 
through  the  dominance  of  Germany,  with  its 
inveterate  love  of  despotism,  its  worship  of 
force  and  of  bureaucracy.  From  infancy  she 
had  heard  especially  of  the  Italian  struggle 
for  independence,  a  struggle  then  nearly 
achieved,  which  glowed  with  romance  and 
heroism,  and  was  the  work  of  a  wonderfully 
picturesque  group  of  statesmen  and  soldiers 
leading  millions  of  their  responsive  country- 
men to  national  life.  Cavour  had  but  lately 
died.  Garibaldi,  a  world-hero  fresh  from  the 
glorious  redemption  of  Sicily,  was  the  idol  of 
the  multitude  and  the  terror  of  ministries. 
Victor  Emanuel,  Mazzini,  Ricasoli,  Minghetti, 
and  the  great  throng  of  patriots  of  the  second 
magnitude,  were  in  full  vigor. 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO    147 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven!  " 

For  Evelyn  Carrington,  with  her  Italian 
antecedents  and  liberty-loving  spirit,  the  Ital- 
ian cause  and  its  heroes  had  an  irresistible 
fascination.  It  is  said  that  with  her  first  pin- 
money  she  bought  a  photograph  of  Garibaldi, 
and  it  is  certain  that  her  earliest  printed  work, 
written  while  she  was  still  a  girl,  was  "  La 
Famiglia  Cairoli,"an  account  in  Italian  of  the 
Cairoli  brothers,  of  whom  all  fought  for  Italy, 
several  died  in  battle,  and  one,  Benedetto, 
survived  to  be  Prime  Minister  and  to  receive 
the  dagger  thrust  which  the  assassin  Passa- 
nante  aimed  at  King  Humbert  in  November, 
1878.  Of  this  first  venture,  Countess  Cesar- 
esco  wrote  in  the  Academy  (of  June  11, 
1898),  shortly  after  Gladstone's  death : 

"My  mother  and  I  were  at  Venice  .  .  . 
at  the  Grand  Hotel  and  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
staying  at  the  same.  My  mother  had  often 
met  him  in  her  youth,  when  both  were  the 
guests  of  Mrs.  Gaskell  at  Thornes  House, 
and  it  thus  came  about  that  she  presented 
him  with  a  copy  of  'La  Famiglia  Cairoli.' 
I  shall  always  remember  how,  with  the  par- 
ticular art  of  giving  pleasure  which  he  pos- 


148    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

sessed  in  so  eminent  a  degree,  he  seated 
himself  afterwards  in  the  middle  of  the  salle 
de  lecture)  where  the  young  author  could 
not  help  seeing  him,  and  spent  about  an 
hour  in  reading  the  little  work,  apparently 
with  extreme  attention.  It  was  a  trait  which 
exactly  revealed  the  man." 

In  1882,  at  Rome,  Miss  Carrington  mar- 
ried Count  Eugenio  Martinengo  Cesaresco, 
a  Lombard  noble,  whose  family  for  a  thou- 
sand years  has  been  eminent  among  the 
Lombard  nobility.  "  Wherever  there  was 
fighting  going  on,  you  might  be  sure  to 
meet  a  Martinengo.  The  Lombard  plains 
were  not  more  familiar  with  the  name  than 
were  the  isles  of  Greece.  Again  and  again 
it  appears  in  the  struggle  of  Europe  with 
Asia,  which  was  gallantly  sustained  from 
rock  to  rock  by  small  handfuls  of  men  to 
whom  Christendom  gave  prayers,  tears,  and 
abandonment."  One  of  these  Martinenghi, 
Luigi,  commanded  the  artillery  in  the  siege 
of  Famagosta  against  the  Turks,  and  was 
hacked  to  death  when,  after  a  resistance  of 
two  years  and  five  months,  the  Muslim  took 
the  city.  The  Count's  father  headed  the 
insurrection  of  the  Brescians  when  in  1848 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO    149 

they  threw  off  the  Austrian  yoke ;  and  in 
the  following  year,  when  they  made  their 
magnificent  ten  days'  stand  against  over- 
whelming odds,  he  was  the  last  to  sheathe 
his  sword. 

The  Count  and  Countess  settled  in  one  of 
the  old  Martinengo  palaces  at  Salo,  which 
has  ever  since  been  their  home.  The  town 
of  Salo  nestles  on  the  western  bank  of  Lake 
Garda,  where  the  lake  is  broadest  and  the 
last  spurs  of  the  Alps  begin  to  melt  into  the 
Lombard  plain.  The  palace  itself,  a  large, 
rambling  brick  structure,  comes  by  right  by 
its  fortress-like  air,  as  it  has  withstood  more 
than  one  bombardment ;  but  when  it  was 
built,  and  for  more  than  two  centuries  there- 
after, it  was  the  most  famous  pleasure  palace 
in  northern  Italy.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu said  of  it  that  even  in  her  time  the  King 
of  France  had  nothing  so  fine,  and  that  it 
was  much  larger  than  the  royal  palaces  of 
Naples,  Germany,  or  England.  The  view 
from  it  is  superb.  The  hills  among  which 
the  battle  of  Solferino  was  fought  bound  the 
southern  horizon.  From  a  little  height  one1 
sees  the  promontory  of  Sermione,  "  Catullus's 
all  but  island,"  castle-crowned,  jutting  into 


150    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

the  lake.  And  not  far  above  Salo,  as  you  go 
northward,  the  banks  become  precipitous, 
and  for  many  miles  your  steamer  skirts  a 
succession  of  Gibraltars,  each  higher  and 
more  massive  than  Gib  itself.  Of  the  beauty 
and  grandeur  of  Lake  Garda,  no  one  has 
written  so  well  as  Countess  Cesaresco  in  her 
essay  "  Benacus,  the  Poet's  Lake,"  and  she 
has  told  the  story  of  the  old  palace,  and  of 
some  of  the  most  striking  of  the  Martinenghi, 
in  her  "  Memorials  of  a  Lombard  House."  To 
one  of  the  occupants  of  the  palace  —  Vittoria 
Accoramboni,  the  maligned  heroine  of  John 
Webster's  The  White  Devil  —  she  has  de- 
voted a  special  article.  I  say  "maligned" 
because,  from  the  best  evidence  now  obtain- 
able, it  seems  improbable  that  the  beautiful 
Vittoria  was  guilty  of  those  crimes  which 
Webster  made  the  substance  of  his  tremend- 
ous tragedy. 

It  is  evident  that  Countess  Cesaresco 
plunged  heart  and  soul  into  her  new  life. 
She  sought  eagerly  to  know  the  condition  of 
all  classes  of  the  people  among  whom  she 
was  thrown,  and  she  found,  as  others  have 
found,  an  inexhaustible  charm  in  the  Italian 
nature.  She  traveled  much,  visiting  every 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO    151 

part  of  the  peninsula,  with  trips  to  Sicily, 
Sardinia,  and  Corsica,  and  longer  tours  to  the 
Levant  and  Western  Europe.  Her  intercourse 
•with  England  was  uninterrupted,  her  journeys 
home  frequent.  Thus  she  kept  abreast  of  the 
contemporary  history  and  literature,  not  only 
of  her  adopted  country,  but  of  England,  and 
the  larger  interests  there;  and  she  studied 
with  insatiable  curiosity  in  many  fields. 

It  was  in  1886  that  she  issued  her  first 
mature  book,  "Essays  in  the  Study  of  Folk- 
Songs, "  a  model  of  the  way  in  which  a  vast 
store  of  various  information  can  be  presented 
with  unfailing  vivacity.  The  Countess  speaks 
as  a  specialist,  but  with  so  much  charm  that 
she  can  hardly  fail  to  attract  any  cultivated 
reader.  As  her  book  was  printed  by  an  ob- 
scure London  publisher,  it  had,  I  suppose, 
no  wide  circulation;  but  more  than  one  copy 
fell  into  the  hands  of  discriminating  readers. 
Among  these  was  the  late  Prof.  Francis  J. 
Child,  who  praised  it  highly,  both  for  its 
excellence  as  a  contribution  to  the  study  in 
which  he  was  master  and  for  its  literary 
merits.  His  praise  makes  others'  superfluous. 

In  1890  appeared  her  "  Italian  Characters 
in  the  Epoch  of  Unification,"  in  which,  as 


152    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

Mr.  Gladstone  remarked,  she  wrote  like  a 
"practised  biographer."  The  book  contains 
sketches  of  Ricasoli,  Settembrini,  Giuseppe 
Martinengo,  Manin,  the  Poerios,  Constance 
d'Azeglio,  Mameli,  Ugo  Bassi,  Nino  Bixio, 
and  the  Cairolis, —  a  group  of  sufficiently 
dissimilar  persons  to  test  the  skill  of  any 
painter.  Several  of  these  personages  she  in- 
troduced for  the  first  time  to  English  read- 
ers ;  into  all  of  them  she  breathed  the 
breath  of  life.  Her  portraits  of  Ricasoli,  the 
Tuscan  Puritan,  with  his  passion  for  integ- 
rity and  his  beautiful  devotion  to  his  daugh- 
ter ;  of  Marchioness  d'Azeglio,  the  Pied- 
montese  grande  dame,  witty,  far-seeing,  full 
of  sense,  patriotic ;  of  Mameli,  the  boy  poet, 
dying  in  defending  Rome ;  of  Bassi,  the 
patriot  priest,  whom  the  Austrians  shot  like 
a  malefactor;  of  the  wise  and  unselfish  and 
enduring  Manin,  —  these  are  some  of  the 
faces  in  her  gallery  which  one  does  not 
forget. 

In  her  method  the  Countess  reminds  you 
of  Plutarch ;  for,  instead  of  a  chronological 
narrative,  she  picks  and  chooses,  giving  you 
the  vital  facts,  letting  you  see  her  subject 
at  a  critical  moment  or  in  his  characteristic 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO    153 

actions,  preferring  an  anecdote  to  a  date, 
leaving  on  you  such  an  impression  of  genu- 
ineness as  the  high  creations  of  the  artist 
leave.  The  essays  disclose  their  writer's  very 
wide  sympathy ;  they  abound  also  in  keen 
criticism  of  men  and  politics.  She  has  at 
her  command  an  unusual  reserve  of  irony. 
She  is  enthusiastic,  partisan  if  you  will,  be- 
cause she  would  not  condescend  to  waste 
her  time  describing  characters  for  whom  she 
felt  no  enthusiasm.  The  book  is  almost 
invaluable  for  the  student  of  the  Italian 
Regeneration,  because,  although  only  Count 
Martinengo's  features  were  drawn  from  life, 
the  writer  had  access  to  many  unprinted 
sources,  and,  above  all,  she  had  the  unwrit- 
ten recollections  of  many  of  the  companions 
of  her  heroes,  with  which  to  vivify  or  chasten 
her  own  impression. 

Her  next  book,  "  The  Liberation  of  Italy, 
1815-1870,"  printed  in  1894,  is  a  popular 
account  of  the  unification  of  Italy,  and  it 
is  still  the  best  short  history  of  the  period. 
Had  its  author  produced  nothing  else,  this 
would  have  distinguished  her  as  possessing 
a  rare  combination  of  literary  charm  and 
historical  insight.  It  would  also  have  placed 


154    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

her  in  the  company  of  two  other  English 
women  who  have  done  Italy  a  great  service 
in  interpreting  Italy  to  English  readers.  One 
of  these,  Jessie  White,  wife  of  Garibaldi's 
lieutenant,  Alberto  Mario,  took  part  in  the 
events  of  forty  years  ago,  has  written  the 
lives  of  Bertani,  Garibaldi,  and  Mazzini,  and 
long  served  as  correspondent  of  the  Nation 
and  of  English  journals.  The  other,  Linda 
White,  wife  of  Pasquale  Villari,  the  dean 
of  Italian  historians,  has  translated  her  hus- 
band's principal  works.  It  would  seem  that 
in  some  English  natures  there  is  an  affinity 
which  lets  them  into  the  secret  of  Italy. 

Countess  Cesaresco's  "Liberation  of  Italy" 
may  lack  the  highest  constructive  historical 
qualities,  but  it  has  the  highest  moral  quality 
in  a  history  —  justice.  To  each  of  the  great 
factors  in  the  result — to  Victor  Emanuel  and 
Cavour,  to  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi — it  allots 
fair  praise.  And  there  are  in  it  divinations 
like  this,  which  outvalue  many  pages  of  or- 
dinary historical  writing :  "  The  Italians  are 
not  a  mystical  people,  but  they  have  always 
followed  mystical  leaders." 

But  her  short  history  proved  to  be  the 
stepping-stone  to  a  book  of  far  higher  excel- 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO    165 

lence — to  her  life  of  Cavour  in  the  "Foreign 
Statesmen  Series,"  which  has  not,  to  my 
knowledge,  a  superior  in  English.  How  good 
it  is  will  be  apparent  to  any  one  who  cares  to 
compare  it  with  Freeman's  "  William  the  Con- 
queror," or  Creighton's  "  Wolsey,"  or  Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison's  "  William  the  Silent,"  all 
of  which  have  a  similar  range.  Countess 
Cesaresco,  in  her  "  Cavour,"  has  mastered  the 
art  of  presentation,  and  attained  to  a  sym- 
metry, rather  French  than  English,  beyond 
the  reach  of  any  of  these.  And  although 
her  little  book  is  all  pith,  it  has  that  ease, 
that  absence  of  laboriousness,  by  which  real 
achievements  in  art  are  recognized.  She  has 
not  only  created  literature,  she  has  made  a 
fine  portrait  of  the  great  statesman  who  ranks 
with  Napoleon  and  Bismarck  in  European 
history  in  the  nineteenth  century.  She  has 
succeeded  in  unfolding  Cavour  the  man  and 
Cavour  the  statesman,  and  in  defining  the 
scope  of  his  influence  in  the  political  evolu- 
tion of  his  time.  Those  best  acquainted  with 
the  subject  will  best  understand  how  many 
books  went  to  the  distilling  of  this  short 
biography.  Every  sentence  in  it  tells.  It  is 
the  best  brief  life  in  English  of  a  dynamic 


156    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

statesman,  as  Mr.  John  Morley's  "  Burke  "  is 
the  best  brief  life  of  a  philosophical  states- 
man. 

The  "  Cavour  "  was  published  in  1898,  and 
in  the  autumn  of  1902  appeared  Countess 
Cesaresco's  fifth  volume,  "  Lombard  Studies," 
a  collection  of  essays,  on  many  themes.  She 
describes  Lake  Garda,  the  Franciacorta,  Ri- 
mini, and  Lake  Iseo ;  she  tells  the  story  of 
the  Martinenghi ;  she  reviews  Arthur  Young's 
"  North  Italian  Journey  " ;  she  brings  together 
in  a  single  paper  all  the  known  facts  about 
Vittoria  Accoramboni ;  she  treats  of  Lom- 
bard agriculture ;  she  criticises  the  popular 
stage,  and  gives  in  epitome  the  annals  of  La 
Scala  Theatre.  A  varied  programme,  surely  ; 
but  it  is  the  method,  and  not  the  variety,  that 
counts.  One  perceives  that  many  of  these 
are  essays  of  high  literary  quality,  not  writ- 
ten to  order,  but  for  the  love  of  it  —  in  which 
experience,  travel,  observation,  culture  over- 
flow for  our  delight.  At  their  best  they  re- 
semble, as  literary  essays  should,  the  best 
conversation.  They  are  now  sprightly,  now 
serious ;  they  do  not  insist  too  brusquely 
even  in  enforcing  an  argument ;  but  in  them 
a  bit  of  landscape,  reminiscence,  a  literary 


COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO    157 

or  historical  allusion,  is  introduced  naturally, 
by  the  way,  and  then  dismissed.  If  you  have 
caught  the  point,  good  —  if  not,  the  conver- 
sation moves  swiftly  on  into  other  channels, 
for  there  is  no  stopping  to  explain. 

Take  a  single  example:  Speaking  of  the 
many  modern  plays  based  on  the  story  of 
Francesca  and  Paolo,  Countess  Cesaresco 
says: 

"Of  the  first  in  the  field,  Silvio  Pellico, 
Foscolo  said  severely  that  the  young  man 
would  have  done  better  to  leave  Dante  alone. 
It  is  very  likely  that  from  his  classical  stand- 
point he  would  have  passed  the  same  judg- 
ment on  Leigh  Hunt,  Stephen  Phillips, 
Gabriele  d'Annunzio,  and  Marion  Crawford. 
But,  perhaps,  Dante  himself  would  not  have 
complained.  At  any  rate,  his  is  the  triumph, 
for  there  is  one  moment  in  the  five  plays  at 
which  the  audience  is  lifted  into  an  emotional 
seventh  heaven  nowhere  else  approached ;  the 
moment  when  each  author  introduces  Dante's 
words  and  Dante's  scene  of  the  reading  of 
the  fatal  book !  Whatever  else  fails,  that  never 
does." 

The  artist's  touch,  unmistakable  in  this 
passage,  characterizes  the  entire  volume.  The 


158    COUNTESS  MARTINENGO  CESARESCO 

essays  have,  moreover,  a  very  strong  personal 
coloring.  They  are  not  abstract,  or  theoreti- 
cal, but  the  concrete  opinions,  emotions,  pre- 
ferences of  precisely  the  Countess  Cesaresco, 
and  no  other.  The  "Cavour"  was  objective, 
almost  classic  in  its  terseness;  but  these  essays 
are  subjective,  as  they  should  be,  and  reveal 
to  us  a  strong  and  rare  personality.  The  keen 
and  inquisitive  mind,  hungry  for  knowledge 
of  every  kind,  has  its  counterpart  in  capacity 
for  high  emotion.  The  revelation  of  individu- 
ality delights  us;  we  are  drawn  from  the  book 
to  its  author. 

Such,  told  very  briefly,  has  been  Countess 
Cesaresco's  achievement.  Although  it  is  too 
soon  to  pass  a  final  judgment  on  it,  we  already 
mark  its  versatility,  its  vitality,  its  charm, 
and  its  excellence,  in  fields  where  women 
have  too  seldom  competed  successfully  with 
men. 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME1 

As  the  nineteenth  century  falls  into  silence, 
we  distinguish  at  least  two  Italian  voices,  of 
very  different  notes,  that  have  gone  forth 
from  it  into  many  lands,  and  seem  likely 
to  be  listened  to  by  a  long  posterity.  One 
voice,  Manzoni's,  speaks  a  clear,  wholesome 
message,  abounding  in  wit,  in  love  of  the  ele- 
mental human  lot,  in  piety ;  the  other  voice, 
Leopardi's,  sounds  all  the  stops  of  despair, 
passing  from  pity  to  scorn,  and  from  scorn 
to  bitterness,  but  always  beautiful,  like  the 
song  of  a  hermit  thrush.  And  the  world, 
obeying  an  instinct  which  lies  deep  in  the 
heart  of  man,  has  come  to  pay  more  atten- 
tion to  Leopardi  than  to  Manzoni ;  for  the 
genial  author  of  the  "  Promessi  Sposi  "  and 
of  the  Catholic  hymns  furnishes  delight,  per- 
haps even  consolation,  but  he  does  not  answer, 
at  least  for  our  doubting,  inquisitive  genera- 
tion, questions  which  every  serious  man  must 
some  time  confront.  To  submit  reason  to 

1  The  Nation,  June  20,  1895. 


162  LEOPARDI'S  HOME 

dogma,  to  the  dogma  formulated  by  St. 
Thomas  and  encrusted  with  the  superstitions 
of  the  subsequent  six  hundred  years  —  to 
deny  science  —  to  close  one's  eyes  to  the 
amazing  contradictions  of  our  existence  — 
all  this  has  become  for  honest  thinkers  well- 
nigh  impossible,  so  that,  when  they  seek  en- 
lightenment, they  naturally  do  not  turn  to 
Manzoni.  His  great  achievement  lay  not  in 
his  philosophy,  but  in  his  pictures  of  the  life 
round  him,  and  we  may  enjoy  his  romance, 
as  we  enjoy  any  other  beautiful  work  of  art, 
without  quarreling  with  him  for  not  making 
it  philosophic.  Fiction  has  become  so  sodden 
with  social,  political,  religious,  medical,  or 
other  propaganda  that  we  can  reverence 
Manzoni  all  the  more  in  that  he  refused  to 
palm  off  in  his  novel  an  ill-disguised  tract. 

But  it  is  because  Leopardi,  whether  in  his 
poetry  or  in  his  prose  — and  in  both  he  was 
a  master — spoke  out  the  doubt  which  con- 
sumed him,  that  his  works  have  traveled  into 
many  lands,  and  that  he  is  held  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  that  pessimism  with  which  so 
much  of  the  thought  of  our  age  is  saturated. 
He  at  least  gave  one  answer  to  the  problem 
of  life  —  a  grim  and  terrible  answer,  yet  one 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME  163 

which,  for  reasons  not  here  to  be  discussed, 
has  been  prevalent  in  these  later  decades. 
The  caprice  and  injustice  of  destiny,  the 
overwhelming  realization  of  evil,  the  perpe- 
tuity of  sin  and  pain  — in  a  word,  the  appar- 
ent impossibility  of  reconciling  the  individual 
with  the  universe — left  him  but  one  solu- 
tion, the  preferability  of  annihilation.  We 
think  of  another  soul,  Spinoza,  equally  im- 
pressed by  this  immense  discrepancy  between 
the  individual  and  the  infinite,  and  remem- 
bering Spinoza's  ecstasy  at  being  a  mere 
atom  of  infinity,  we  understand  how  tem- 
perament —  that  very  fate  against  which 
Leopardi  inveighed  and  which  to  Spinoza 
was  God  —  determines  our  view  of  lif e.  Leo- 
pardi was  no  whiner,  and  therefore  it  is  that 
now,  nearly  sixty  years  after  his  death,  new 
books  about  him  appear  every  season,  and 
whatever  concerned  his  personality  has  been 
carefully  gleaned.  His  voice,  intensified  by 
rare  genius,  is  the  voice  of  those  that  suffer, 
or  fail,  or  despair,  a  voice  akin  to  that  of 
Ecclesiastes,  who  summed  up  the  pessimism 
of  the  Hebrews.  And  just  as  sorrow  or  pain 
enters  sooner  or  later  into  the  experience  of 
every  one,  so  at  some  time,  or  by  some  con- 


164  LEOPARDI'S  HOME 

tact,  Leopard!  appeals  most  intimately  to 
many  hearts.  For  even  while  the  healthy  soul 
knows  that  fortitude  and  resignation  are  in- 
dispensable, it  cannot  always  forbear  grief, 
it  cannot  always  stifle  the  sigh  of  anguish. 

But  for  those  who  never  have  taken  Leo- 
pardi  thus  seriously,  his  remarkable  career, 
almost  without  parallel  in  literature,  would 
more  than  justify  a  pilgrimage  to  his  home. 
Born  in  1798,  of  a  noble  family,  at  eleven 
years  of  age  he  had  outstripped  the  utmost 
learning  that  the  priests  of  Recanati  could 
give  him;  at  fourteen  he  had  read  the  entire 
body  of  patristic  literature  in  Latin  and 
Greek;  he  learned  Hebrew,  German,  French, 
English,  and  Spanish  by  himself;  at  twenty- 
one  he  had  achieved  more  in  lyric  poetry  than 
any  Italian  since  Petrarch ;  and  thenceforward 
by  the  discerning  few  he  was  appreciated.  But 
their  recognition  brought  him  little  solace  and 
no  money,  so  that  to  the  end  of  his  grievous 
life  —  he  died  in  1837  —  he  hardly  subsisted 
on  the  scanty  stipend  given  him  by  his  father, 
eked  out  by  the  irregular  sums  he  earned  by 
hack-work  from  the  booksellers,  and  by  the 
bounty  of  one  or  two  friends.  Poverty  has  so 
often  been  the  comrade  of  genius  that  we 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME  165 

should  not  lay  stress  on  it  in  Leopardi's  case 
were  it  not  an  indication  of  family  relations 
which  go  far  to  explain  his  abhorrence  of  Re- 
canati.  Leopardi's  father,  Count  Monaldo, 
was  rich,  as  wealth  was  measured  by  the 
nobles  on  the  Adriatic  coast,  and  yet  he 
allowed  his  son  only  twelve  scudi  or  dollars 
a  month,  although  that  son  was  an  invalid, 
diseased  in  the  nerves  and  spine,  requiring 
every  comfort  to  make  his  physical  existence 
barely  tolerable.  Count  Monaldo's  niggardli- 
ness has  been  much  debated,  but  I  have  yet 
to  find  proof  that  it  sprang  from  want  of 
affection  for  his  son  ;  it  seems  more  probable, 
on  the  contrary,  that,  being  quite  unable  to 
understand  Giacomo's  genius,  and  dreading 
his  anti-clerical  opinions,  the  father  wished 
to  force  Giacomo  to  stay  at  home,  where  his 
heresies  could  be  smothered.  Certainly  the 
plea  that  the  Count  could  afford  no  more  than 
a  beggar's  portion  will  not  persuade  any  one 
who  has  seen  the  Leopardi  palace  at  Recanati. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  poet's  invectives 
against  his  surroundings  must  be  taken  with 
much  reserve.  That  he  had  no  congenial  com- 
panionship at  Recanati  is  undeniable,  but  that 
the  place  itself  or  the  neighboring  country 


166  LEOPARDI'S   HOME 

would  suffice  to  explain  his  pessimism  will  be 
argued  only  by  those  who,  like  Taine,  try  to 
explain  every  genius  by  the  acre  it  happens 
to  be  tethered  in.  As  well  pretend  that  Shake- 
speare drew  Hamlet's  pessimism  from  War- 
wickshire, as  that  the  beautiful  country 
around  Recanati  caused  Leopardi's  pessimism. 
And  as  for  lack  of  intellectual  companionship, 
was  Burns,  then,  so  fortunate  in  Ayrshire,  or 
Carlyle  at  Ecclefechan?  No;  seek  Leopardi's 
secret — if  what  is  so  patent  can  be  called 
a  secret  —  in  his  diseased  nerves  and  spine,  in 
the  restless,  insatiable  mind  unsupported  by 
an  adequate  physique!  Nature  is  as  beautiful 
on  the  hills  he  haunted  as  she  ever  was  in 
Arcady. 

From  Ancona  a  slow  train  takes  you  in  less 
than  an  hour  to  the  village  of  Porto  Recanati, 
on  the  very  margin  of  the  Adriatic.  Thence, 
by  an  excellent  high-road,  you  drive  in  an 
hour  to  Recanati  itself,  which  is  built  along 
a  high  ridge,  and  looks  most  picturesque  with 
its  old  walls  and  towers  and  vast  communal 
palace.  The  road  winds  among  very  fertile 
farms,  every  inch  of  which  is  cultivated.  The 
backs  of  the  curving  hills  are  now  deep  with 
grass  or  wheat ;  in  the  lower  fields  the  grain 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME  167 

is  almost  ripe,  and  endless  processions  of  mul- 
berry-trees, trained  in  goblet  shape,  are  fes- 
tooned with  vines.  Innumerable  flowers  grow 
along  the  wayside;  the  road  itself  is  bounded 
by  hedges  of  white  hawthorn,  just  blossom- 
ing; the  farmers'  houses  are  overrun  with 
wistaria,  or  decked  with  little  plots  of  purple 
iris.  The  peasants  seem  well-to-do,  working, 
men  and  women  together,  in  the  vineyards. 
Some  of  the  women  still  wear  the  traditional 
peasants'  costumes,  and  the  ox-carts,  drawn 
by  white  oxen,  have  pictures  or  flowers  or 
religious  emblems  painted  on  them.  There  is 
nothing  in  all  this  to  suggest  the  approach  to 
the  shrine  of  pessimism. 

The  town,  which  we  enter  from  the  east, 
has  narrow  streets  and,  except  the  communal 
palace,  no  noteworthy  buildings.  In  the  chief 
square  there  is  an  admirable  marble  statue  of 
Leopardi,  by  Panichi ;  it  shows  the  large,  in- 
tellectual head,  the  deep-set  eyes,  the  pinched 
cheeks,  and  pained  expression  common  to  his 
later  portraits.  Eighty  years  ago,  in  these 
very  streets,  his  fellows  jeered  at  him.  Five 
minutes  distant  from  the  square,  near  the 
western  wall,  is  the  Leopardi  palace,  a  large, 
rambling  brick  structure.  Beyond  the  en- 


168  LEOPARDI'S  HOME 

trance,  instead  of  the  customary  courtyard, 
there  is  a  marble  "  atrium  and  peristyle,"  — 
completed,  as  a  tablet  informs  us,  by  Count 
Monaldo  for  the  admiration  of  posterity  in 
1798,  the  year  of  Giacomo's  birth,  —  and 
thence  flights  of  marble  steps  lead  to  the 
second  story.  The  whole  produces  the  effect 
of  old-fashioned  elegance  tempered  by  a  tend- 
ency towards  the  sepulchral. 

The  footman  of  the  present  Count  unlocks 
the  door  leading  to  the  Leopardi  library, 
which  consists  of  five  rooms,  connected  by  a 
corridor  along  the  eastern  side  of  the  house, 
which  gives  it  the  appearance  of  a  series  of 
vast  alcoves  rather  than  of  separate  rooms. 
The  walls  from  floor  to  ceiling  are  filled  with 
books  —  27,000  in  all — the  larger  part  bound 
in  vellum,  and  arranged  according  to  topics. 
The  chief  hall  contains  cabinets  with  many 
of  the  poet's  manuscripts  and  other  memen- 
toes of  him.  There  is  also  a  cabinet  of 
medals,  bric-a-brac,  and  antiques,  formed  by 
his  father,  and  his  father's  study.  In  these 
quarters,  certainly  not  to  be  equaled  in  many 
private  houses  anywhere,  young  Leopardi 
grew  up.  The  number  of  boys  of  genius  who 
have  had  nearly  30,000  books  under  their 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME  169 

father's  roof  to  browse  among  at  will  must 
be  exceedingly  small,  so  that  on  this  score 
Leopardi  was  not  to  be  pitied  —  unless,  in- 
deed, we  are  to  pity  those  into  whose  hands 
fortune  places  the  means  of  their  undoing. 
That  Leopardi  could  ever  have  been  robust 
was  impossible,  but  that  he  speedily  wrecked 
his  frail  physique  by  over-study  is  also  un- 
questioned ;  and  in  this  rich  library  the  means 
of  wrecking  himself  were  close  at  hand. 

The  windows  of  the  rooms  look  towards 
the  east,  but  the  view  is  cut  off  by  a  row  of 
bare,  ugly  houses,  in  one  of  which  dwelt  the 
coachman's  pretty  daughter,  of  whom  he 
wrote  under  the  name  of  "  Nerina."  He  used 
to  go  out  but  seldom,  an  old  servant  who 
remembers  him  told  us,  and  then  he  went 
alone.  But  even  a  short  walk  would  bring 
him  to  one  of  the  many  points  whence  he 
got  the  views  which  he  has  described.  If  he 
looked  eastward,  he  saw  rolling  hills  and  rich 
valleys,  and  the  Adriatic  beyond;  a  little  to 
the  north,  three  miles  away,  he  saw  the  dome 
of  the  shrine  of  Loreto,  and  then  Castel- 
fidardo,  Osimo,  and  half  a  dozen  other  hill 
cities ;  westward,  across  great  gulfs  of  green, 
he  saw  the  Apennines.  How  easily  the  disci- 


170  LEOPARDI'S  HOME 

pies  of  Buckle  could  find  here  the  environment 
to  account  for  a  joyous  poet ! 

But  most  interesting,  after  the  sight  of 
Leopardi's  home  itself,  is  that  cabinet  which 
holds  his  manuscripts,  all  neatly  written,  only 
the  poems  showing  frequent  emendations. 
Here  is  a  large  copy-book  entitled  "  The 
Philosophic  Essays  of  Giacomo  Leopardi," 
and  dated  1809,  when  he  was  eleven  years 
old,  and  another,  "  The  History  of  Astro- 
nomy," with  the  date  1813.  In  his  case  such 
titles  were  not  vain,  for  there  has  probably 
been  no  other  juvenile  mind,  except  Mill's, 
which  worked  with  the  accuracy  and  vigor 
of  the  best-trained  mature  intellects  at  an 
age  when  most  boys  are,  fortunately,  still 
playing  at  leap-frog.  We  know  how  near 
Mill  came  to  disasters  in  both  physical  and 
mental  health,  and  how  long  it  took  him, 
through  a  life  of  intellectual  action,  to  throw 
off  the  gloom  which  that  early  abnormal 
strain  fixed  upon  him  ;  but  Leopardi  had  no 
companionship  to  draw  him  out  of  himself, 
no  great  movement  into  which  he  could 
throw  himself,  and,  worst  of  all,  no  constitu- 
tion to  endure  the  immense  labors  he  engaged 
in.  Towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  protested 


LEOPARDI'S  HOME  171 

that  disease  had  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  pessimistic  principles  he  professed ;  but 
psychologists  to-day,  familiar  with  neurotic 
conditions,  will  not  heed  his  protest.  They 
will  wonder  that  a  mind  so  tormented  pre- 
served to  the  last  its  remarkable  powers  rather 
than  that  its  thoughts  took  the  tinge  of  his 
suffering. 

The  final  biography  of  Leopardi  is  still 
lacking,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  cannot  be 
written  by  one  who  has  not  seen  Leopardi's 
home.  As  your  rickety  carriage  drives  down 
the  steep  hill  towards  Castelfidardo,  passing 
rich  crops  and  innumerable  wild  flowers  on 
either  side,  and  you  think  of  the  palace  and 
vast  library,  you  will  feel  how  personality 
lords  it  over  environment.  You  will  feel,  too, 
that  Leopardi's  career,  irrespective  of  his 
doctrines,  gives  no  comfort  to  those  easy 
optimists  who  blink  facts.  Prometheus  on 
the  rock,  Laocoon  in  the  toils  —  you  have 
their  modern  instance  in  Leopardi.  "  Great 
men,  great  nations,"  says  Emerson,  "  per- 
ceive the  terror  of  life " ;  a  life  like  Leo- 
pardi's is  not  to  be  confuted,  but  to  be  under- 
stood, before  its  example  of  terror  can  be 
bravely  faced. 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE1 

WHEN  the  death  of  the  reigning  Pope  draws 
near,  the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State  informs 
the  Dean  of  the  Sacred  College,  who  sum- 
mons his  colleagues  to  the  residence  of  the 
dying  man  ;  the  Cardinal  Vicar  issues  or- 
ders that  prayers  be  offered  in  the  Roman 
churches ;  the  Cardinal  Penitentiary  attends 
the  bedside  of  the  Pope,  to  whom  the  sa- 
cristan of  the  Pope's  chapel  administers  ex- 
treme unction.  As  soon  as  may  be  after 
death  has  occurred,  the  body  must  be  form- 
ally recognized  by  the  Cardinal  Camerlingo, 
who,  in  obedience  to  an  ancient  custom, 
first  knocks  thrice  on  the  door  of  the  bed- 
chamber. Getting  no  answer,  he  enters,  and 
taps  thrice  with  a  silver  mallet  on  the  dead 
man's  forehead,  and  thrice  calls  him  by 
name.  No  response  coming,  the  Camerlingo 
declares  that  the  Pope  is  dead.  Thenceforth 
the  Camerlingo  is  the  most  important  of  the 
cardinals,  having  charge  of  the  preparations 

1  The  Century,  May,  1896. 


176  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

for  the  conclave,  of  the  government  of  the 
Palace,  and  of  the  transactions  with  the 
representatives  of  foreign  powers,  to  whom 
he  officially  announces  the  Pope's  death ; 
the  Papal  Guard  of  Swiss  halberdiers  at- 
tends him  when  he  goes  out;  his  arms  are 
stamped  on  the  medal  of  the  Vacant  See; 
he  takes  an  inventory  of  the  property  in 
the  Palace,  and  affixes  seals  to  the  dead 
pontiff's  papers.  But  in  order  to  prevent  him 
from  overstepping  his  authority  the  Sacred 
College  appoints  three  cardinals,  —  a  bishop, 
a  priest,  and  a  deacon,  —  who  are  called  the 
Heads  of  the  Orders,  and  whose  business  it 
is  to  overlook  his  acts.  They  serve  for  three 
days,  being  replaced  by  others  chosen  in  ro- 
tation. 

Meanwhile  the  great  bell  of  the  Capitol, 
the  so-called  "  Paterine,"  has  tolled  the  news 
to  the  citizens  in  Rome.  Formerly  this  was 
the  signal  for  unlocking  the  jails  and  for 
unrestrained  disorders.  Brokers  used  to  set 
up  booths  where  pools,  as  at  a  horse-race, 
were  sold  on  the  probable  next  Pope,  enor- 
mous sums  being  squandered  in  this  species 
of  gambling  :  more  recently  that  scandal  has 
been  less  open.  Every  one  is  on  tiptoe  with 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  177 

excitement ;  churchmen  as  well  as  laymen 
display  an  eagerness  out  of  tune  with  the 
grief  in  which  the  Church  is  officially  de- 
clared to  be  plunged. 

For  during  the  novendial,  or  nine  days 
succeeding  the  Pope's  death,  the  celebration 
of  his  obsequies  and  the  mourning  for  his 
loss  are  supposed  to  absorb  universal  atten- 
tion. His  body  must  first  be  embalmed  and 
then  attired  in  funeral  apparel.  When  masses 
have  been  said  over  it  in  the  presence  of  the 
cardinals,  it  is  removed  to  St.  Peter's,  where, 
on  a  magnificent  catafalque,  it  lies  in  state. 
Finally,  on  the  ninth  day,  the  public  funeral 
—  one  of  the  great  pageants  of  the  world  — 
takes  place,  after  which  the  body  is  coffined 
and  laid  away  in  the  temporary  receiving- 
tomb,  to  rest  there  until,  when  the  next 
Pope  dies,  it  is  lowered  into  the  crypt  of  St. 
Peter's,  or  sent  elsewhere  for  burial. 

Needless  to  say,  the  funeral  ceremonies 
of  the  novendial  cause  no  abatement  in  the 
preparation  for  the  conclave.  The  day  after 
the  Pope  dies,  as  many  cardinals  as  happen 
to  be  in  Rome  meet  to  confer.  The  oldest 
of  their  number,  the  Dean  of  the  College, 
presides ;  they  swear  to  preserve  the  ut- 


178  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

most  secrecy  concerning  all  their  proceed- 
ings; they  renew  their  oaths  of  allegiance 
to  the  Holy  See,  binding  themselves  to  de- 
fend and  guard  the  rights,  prerogatives,  and 
temporal  possessions  of  the  Church  "  up  to 
the  effusion  of  blood " ;  then  they  discuss 
questions  of  immediate  urgency,  listen  to 
the  reading  of  the  laws  governing  the  elec- 
tion, and  hear  the  Camerlingo's  report  of 
his  business.  The  congregation  re-assembles 
each  day,  its  numbers  being  constantly  in- 
creased by  the  arrival  of  cardinals  from  a 
distance. 

So  soon  as  the  last  ceremonies  for  the 
dead  Pope  have  been  performed  in  St.  Pe- 
ter's, all  is  ready  for  the  conclave  to  begin. 
As  its  sessions  must  be  held,  if  possible, 
where  the  late  Pope  died,  the  Quirinal  Pal- 
ace was  usually  chosen ;  but  the  conclave  of 
1878  sat  in  the  Vatican,  where  Pius  IX 
died.  To  preserve  an  appearance  of  secrecy, 
the  quarters  occupied  by  the  cardinals  are 
isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  building  and 
from  the  outer  world  by  the  walling  up 
of  every  door  and  window  and  aperture. 
Each  cardinal  has  a  separate  room,  which 
he  draws  by  lot  and  may  not  exchange ;  he 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  179 

is  also  accompanied  by  two  conclavists,  or 
attendants,  who  may  be  ecclesiastics  or  lay- 
men, provided  they  have  been  attached  to 
the  household  for  half  a  year  previous.  But 
these  are  only  a  part  of  the  personnel  of  a 
conclave,  which  has  a  master  of  ceremonies, 
a  secretary,  a  confessor,  a  physician,  barb- 
ers, carpenters,  masons,  and  serving-men  — 
in  all  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  souls. 

In  St.  Peter's,  or  other  church,  the  cardi- 
nals gather.  Their  dean  celebrates  the  mass 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  after  which  an  eminent 
prelate  preaches  a  sermon  admonishing  them 
to  set  aside  every  personal  consideration,  and 
with  all  diligence  to  give  the  bereaved  church 
a  new  shepherd.  Then  according  to  prescrip- 
tion the  master  of  ceremonies  takes  the  papal 
cross,  and  marches,  followed  by  the  cardinals 
in  the  order  of  their  rank  — first  the  bishops, 
next  the  priests,  and  last  the  deacons,  all  in 
violet  capes.  Their  attendants  precede  them, 
followed  immediately  by  the  papal  choir 
singing  the  hymn  "  Veni,  Creator  Spiritus" 
The  prelates  follow  behind  the  cardinals. 
Thus  in  procession  they  enter  the  conclave, 
and  having  reached  the  chapel,  the  Cardinal 
Dean  at  the  altar  recites  the  prayer  "Deus 


180  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

qui  cordafidelium"  after  which  the  cardinals 
read  the  ordinances  on  the  election  of  a  pope 
and  swear  to  uphold  them;  then  they  retire 
to  their  rooms,  where  they  hold  a  general 
levee.  Not  until  three  hours  after  sunset,  at 
the  third  ringing  of  a  bell,  are  they  left  to 
themselves. 

A  great  throng  of  spectators  and  friends 
escorts  the  procession  into  the  palace.  "  Hither 
hie  all  the  ambassadors  and  envoys  and  polit- 
ical agents  in  Rome,  to  snatch  the  last  oppor- 
tunity afforded  for  unrestricted  conference,  to 
give  the  last  stroke  to  eager  appeals  of  soft 
persuasion  or  deterring  menace,  the  last  touch 
to  cunning  combination,  and  particularly  to 
deposit  in  the  hands  of  an  intimate  confeder- 
ate the  knowledge  of  those  whose  nomination 
their  courts  will  absolutely  not  brook." 

At  the  third  ringing  of  the  bell  the  master 
of  ceremonies  cries,  "Extra  omnes!"  "All 
out ! "  Yet  there  are  still  laggards,  who  go 
only  after  vigorous  persuasion.  The  last  hav- 
ing departed,  the  Cardinal  Camerlingo  and 
his  three  colleagues  lock  the  great  door  and 
draw  the  bolts  on  the  inside,  while  the 
Prince  Marshal,  an  officer  who  has  for  cen- 
turies been  either  a  Colonna  or  a  Chigi,  turns 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  181 

the  keys  on  the  outside.  Thenceforth  the 
conclave  has  no  ostensible  communication 
with  the  world.  There  are,  however,  two 
cylindrical  dumb-waiters,  or  wheel-boxes, 
through  which  food  and  other  necessaries 
can  be  passed ;  and  standing  at  one  of  these, 
the  ambassador  of  a  Catholic  power  delivers 
a  final  exhortation  to  the  cardinals  listening 
within.  In  1829  it  fell  to  Chateaubriand,  in 
1846  to  Pellegrino  Rossi,  to  give  the  Sacred 
College  this  lecture.  When  they  have  dis- 
persed to  their  cells  for  the  night,  the  Cam- 
erlingo,  lighted  by  men  with  torches,  has  to 
inspect  the  vast  quarters,  peering  into  each 
dark  corner,  looking  under  beds  and  into 
closets,  to  make  sure  that  no  unauthorized 
person  is  hidden  there.  Then,  except  for  the 
whispered  conferences  of  wakeful  election- 
eers, the  conclave  sleeps. 

On  the  morrow  the  balloting  begins.  Be- 
fore describing  that,  however,  let  us  see  how 
the  cardinals  and  their  escort  live  during 
their  seclusion.  Formerly  each  cardinal  had 
his  food  sent  from  his  palace,  and  it  was  one 
of  the  features  of  this  occasion  for  the  car- 
dinalitial  lackeys,  the  so-called  dapifers,  to 
pass  daily  with  large  hampers  through  the 


182  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

streets  of  Rome.  A  prelate  specially  ap- 
pointed received  these  hampers  at  the  wheel- 
boxes,  and  it  was  his  duty,  before  allowing 
the  food  to  go  farther,  to  search  every  mor- 
sel of  it  for  concealed  letters.  The  oath  of 
secrecy,  fortified  by  menace  of  dire  penalties 
to  those  who  break  it,  has  never  constrained 
either  the  cardinals  or  their  attendants  or 
their  friends  in  the  city.  It  has  simply  sharp- 
ened the  wits  of  would-be  communicators  to 
discover  safe  means  of  sending  messages. 
Many  an  important  missive,  secreted  in  the 
belly  of  a  capon  or  in  the  heart  of  an  orange, 
or  pasted  under  the  label  of  a  bottle  of  wine, 
has  reached  its  destination  in  spite  of  the 
vigilance  of  the  bishop  inspector  of  viands ; 
and  answers  have  been  slipped  back  through 
crevices  in  the  plastered  walls,  or  tossed  out 
of  the  window  in  hollow  coins.  Thus  from 
day  to  day  certain  members  of  the  conclave 
and  their  associates  outside  exchange  coun- 

O 

sel ;  and  it  has  happened,  as  in  1831,  when 
Gregory  XVI  was  elected,  that  news  from 
abroad  has  precipitated  an  election.  When 
secrecy  is  violated  in  this  way  while  the  de- 
cision is  still  pending,  we  need  not  be  sur- 
prised that  the  history  of  the  proceedings,  in 


THE  ELECTION   OF  A  POPE  183 

their  minutest  details,  is  subsequently  pub- 
lished by  those  who  take  part  in  them.  The 
best  account  of  the  conclave  of  1800,  for 
instance,  was  written  by  Cardinal  Consalvi, 
who  acted  as  its  secretary. 

At  the  conclave  of  1878,  which  sat  in  the 
Vatican,  the  food  was  not  sent  in  but  was 
prepared  in  a  common  kitchen,  whence  it 
was  carried  to  the  cells  by  the  servants 
of  the  respective  cardinals.  Gregory  X,  in 
1271,  with  a  view  to  hasten  the  election  by 
making  the  electors  as  uncomfortable  as  pos- 
sible, provided  that  during  the  first  five  days 
the  ration  at  each  meal  should  consist  of  a 
single  dish,  after  which  only  bread,  wine,  and 
water  should  be  allowed.  But  this  ascetic 
rule  was  not  observed.  Latterly  cardinals  have 
eaten  what  they  pleased.  Their  ordinary  fare 
consists  of  coffee  or  chocolate  and  rolls  in 
the  morning ;  soup,  two  dishes  of  meat,  with 
vegetables,  wine,  and  dessert  at  the  noontide 
dinner  and  again  at  supper.  The  conclavists 
usually  eat  with  their  patrons ;  the  servants 
and  artisans  mess  together  near  the  kitchen, 
and  they  grumble  at  their  fare  as  loudly  as 
college  students  at  commons. 

About  ten  o'clock  in   the  forenoon    the 


184  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

cardinals,  having  heard  early  mass  and  taken 
communion,  assemble  in  the  chapel,  —  the 
Pauline  Chapel  when  the  conclave  met  in 
the  Quirinal,  the  Sistine  when  in  the  Vat- 
ican, —  which  has  been  arranged  as  a  vot- 
ing-place. A  green  carpet  covers  the  floor, 
and  round  the  walls  are  ranged  as  many 
chairs,  or  thrones,  as  there  are  cardinals. 
Over  each  throne  is  suspended  a  baldachin, 
hung  with  purple  if  the  cardinal  was  created 
by  the  Pope  just  dead,  and  with  green  if  he 
dates  from  an  earlier  pope.  Before  each 
seat  is  a  table,  with  cloth  of  corresponding 
color,  and  paper,  ink,  pens,  pencils,  and  the 
list  of  the  Sacred  College.  In  the  middle  of 
the  chapel  a  large  table  bears  two  gilded 
vases  :  into  one,  chalice-shaped,  with  a  lid, 
the  ballots  are  cast ;  in  the  other,  pyx-shaped, 
they  are  placed  when  they  have  been  counted. 
The  ebony  box  with  lock  and  key  beside 
them  is  used  for  getting  the  votes  of  those 
cardinals  whom  illness  detains  in  their  cells. 
Three  gilt  plates,  other  lists,  inkstands,  and 
a  box  of  little  balls  for  checking  the  names 
of  the  voters,  complete  the  furnishings  of  the 
table,  at  which  are  set  three  stools  for  the 
scrutators. 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  185 

In  one  corner  of  the  chapel,  near  the  Door 
of  the  Sovereign  (if  we  suppose  the  conclaves 
to  be  in  the  Sistine  Chapel),  a  long  stovepipe 
leads  up  from  a  small  stove  to  a  window.  To 
the  right  of  the  entrance  a  wooden  booth  in- 
closes the  water-closets.  Farther  on,  another 
booth  serves  as  a  buffet,  where  the  cardinals 
can  refresh  themselves  with  wine  and  bis- 
cuits. Near  this  are  two  chests,  in  which  are 
kept  three  sets  of  pontifical  garments,  of 
large,  medium,  and  small  size. 

Having  come  to  order  at  the  request  of 
the  Dean,  if  the  formality  of  recognizing  the 
cardinals  be  dispensed  with,  —  and  in  so 
small  a  body  it  is  hardly  necessary,  because 
no  impostor  could  hope  successfully  to  palm 
himself  off  as  a  cardinal,  —  the  first  business 
is  to  choose  three  scrutators,  one  from  each 
order,  to  count  the  ballots,  and  three  infer- 
mieri,  who  collect  the  votes  of  the  sick.  The 
canons  define  three  kinds  of  election:  by 
inspiration,  by  compromise,  and  by  ballot. 
Election  by  inspiration  takes  place  when  "  all 
the  cardinals,  as  if  by  inspiration  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  proclaim  one  candidate  as  pon- 
tiff unanimously  and  viva  voce."  A  single 
dissenting  voice  vitiates  this  method,  which, 


186  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

we  may  remark,  has  perhaps  never  been  car- 
ried out  in  literal  conformity  to  rule,  al- 
though several  popes,  after  more  or  less  wire- 
pulling, have  been  chosen  by  acclamation. 

Election  by  compromise  has  sometimes 
been  resorted  to?  after  a  long  deadlock,  by 
the  appointment  of  a  committee  consisting 
of  representatives  of  the  various  rival  fac- 
tions. The  conclave  merely  ratifies  the  can- 
didate nominated  by  the  committee. 

But  election  by  ballot  is  the  ordinary 
method.  The  ballots,  when  open,  are  about 
four  inches  long  and  three  broad.  In  the 
first  or  upper  section  the  cardinal  writes  his 
name ;  in  the  middle,  the  name  of  the  candi- 
date whom  he  proposes  ;  in  the  lower  section, 
some  motto  from  the  Scriptures.  When  he 
folds  the  sheet  his  name,  being  inside,  is 
covered  by  the  lower  section,  and  only  the 
candidate's  name  or  the  seal  comes  upper- 
most. To  guard  against  the  ballot's  opening 
he  seals  it  with  a  seal  he  has  chosen,  but  it 
must  not  be  one  which  the  scrutators  might 
recognize.  Going  to  the  central  table,  he  de- 
posits the  ballot  in  the  chalice,  repeating  at 
the  same  time  this  formula :  "  Testor  Christ- 
um dominum  qui  me  judicaturus  est,  me 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  187 

eligere  quern  secundum  Deum  judico  elegi 
debere  et  quod  idem  in  accessu  praestabo" 

When  every  one  has  voted,  and  the  infer- 
mieri  have  brought  the  ballots  of  the  sick 
members,  the  first  scrutator  takes  each  ballot 
from  the  chalice,  and  opening  it  (but  only 
so  far  as  to  read  the  motto),  hands  it  to  the 
second,  who,  having  entered  the  vote  oppo- 
site the  candidate's  name  on  the  list,  passes 
it  to  the  third,  who  reads  it  aloud.  During 
this  process  the  other  cardinals  keep  the  tally 
on  the  duplicate  lists  which  each  of  them 
has  before  him.  At  the  conclusion  all  the 
ballots  are  taken  to  the  stove  and  burned, 
the  smoke  from  the  chimney  being  a  signal 
which  multitudes  outside  the  palace  await. 
According  to  common  belief,  when  no  smoke 
appears  at  the  usual  time  it  is  a  sign  that 
the  Pope  has  been  elected.  The  last  ballots 
are  burned  like  the  rest,  however,  the  differ- 
ence in  the  volume  of  smoke  being  due  to 
the  fact  that  as  no  straw  is  used  at  the  last 
burning  there  is  very  little  smoke. 

There  being  no  election,  the  cardinals  now 
return  to  their  quarters  for  dinner,  after  which 
at  three  o'clock  or  a  little  later,  they  reas- 
semble for  another  ballot.  This  differs  from 


188  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

the  morning  one  in  that  the  cardinals,  instead 
of  voting  for  their  favorite  candidates,  vote 
for  their  second  choice.  The  process  is  called 
"acceding,"  and  seems  devised  for  breaking 
a  deadlock.  Each  must  vote  for  some  one  who 
has  received  support  at  the  morning  trial; 
but  if  none  of  these  suit  him,  being  pro- 
hibited from  again  casting  for  his  favorite, 
he  may  simply  vote  for  "  nobody."  Thus  it 
might  happen  that  the  pope  chosen  in  the 
accessus,  or  acceding,  was  a  candidate  whom 
very  few  or  none  of  the  cardinals  would  select 
on  their  first  choice.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  not  many  popes  have  owed  their 
election  to  the  accessus,  in  which  the  cardinals 
generally  throw  random  votes  for  candidates 
who  have  little  chance  of  success. 

Such  is  the  daily  routine  of  the  conclave, 
it  being  rare  that  more  than  two  ballots  a  day 
are  taken,  until  some  candidate  receives  the 
requisite  two-thirds  vote  of  the  members 
present.  At  the  largest  recorded  conclave, 
that  of  1878,  sixty-one  cardinals  were  present; 
the  conclave  of  1800,  held  in  the  Church  of 
San  Giorgio  Maggiore  at  Venice,  when  the 
Papacy  was  in  exile,  counted  only  thirty- 
five.  The  duration  of  a  conclave  depends 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  189 

on  many  considerations  —  personal  ambition, 
political  intrigues,  and  factional  jealousies. 
That  of  1800  lasted  one  hundred  and  four 
days,  that  of  1878  only  three  days.  It  may 
be  well  to  remark  here  that  the  canon  law 
does  not  prescribe  that  the  Pope  must  be  a 
cardinal,  or  even  a  cleric.  Nevertheless,  since 
the  election  of  Urban  VI  in  1378  the  suc- 
cessful candidates  have  been  members  of  the 
Sacred  College,  although  as  late  as  1758  a 
non-cardinal  was  voted  for  several  times.  At 
least  two  laymen  —  John  XIX  (1024)  and 
Adrian  V  (1276)  — were  elected  to  the  Papal 
throne,  and  there  is  to-day  nothing  to  pre- 
vent laymen  from  being  created  cardinals, 
although  they  are  not  entitled  to  vote  in  the 
conclave  unless  they  can  produce  a  special 
permit  from  the  late  Pope.  Up  to  the  meeting 
of  the  conclave  of  1823,  Cardinal  Albani  had 
never  taken  orders,  and  there  is  still  some 
doubt  as  to  whether  he  did  so  then. 

The  official  routine  of  the  conclave,  which 
consists  in  the  celebration  of  the  mass  and 
the  morning  and  afternoon  ballots,  represents 
only  a  small  part  of  its  activity.  Long  before 
politics,  through  the  extension  of  constitu- 
tional government,  became  a  trade  in  other 


190  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

countries,  the  princes  of  the  Roman  hierarchy 
were  masters  of  political  strategy.  The  pre- 
ponderance of  Italian  cardinals  practically 
limits  the  number  of  aspirants  to  the  Papal 
office  to  about  forty.  Among  these  perhaps 
half  are  tacitly  ruled  out  as  unavailable.  A 
candidate,  to  be  "popeable,"  as  the  phrase 
is,  must  have  a  happy  combination  of  qual- 
ifications, among  which  mediocrity  sometimes 
counts  for  much.  Age  also  is  an  advantage, 
because  old  popes  make  frequent  conclaves, 
which  gives  unsuccessful  candidates  another 
chance.  With  Pius  IX  supposed  mediocrity 
seems  to  have  overcome  the  objection  of 
comparative  youth,  he  being  fifty-four  at  his 
election;  but  Leo  XIII,  who  was  sixty-eight 
and  apparently  frail,  outlived  all  of  his  com- 
petitors. Leo  XIII's  election  also  broke  the 
tradition  that  the  Cardinal  Camerlingo  will 
not  find  favor  with  his  colleagues,  who  cher- 
ish a  similar  hostility  to  the  Cardinal  Secre- 
tary of  State.  The  Camerlingo  and  the  Sec- 
retary of  State,  being  the  chief  executive 
officers,  have  more  occasion  than  any  others 
to  render  themselves  unpopular.  They  are 
regarded,  besides,  as  the  special  beneficiaries 
of  the  late  Pope,  and  on  the  theory  that  turn 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  191 

about  is  fair  play,  the  Sacred  College  usually 
prefers,  by  ignoring  them,  to  give  a  different 
faction  its  share  of  offices  and  powers.  The 
Romans  have  a  proverb,  "  No  one  can  be  pope 
twice,"  which  sums  up  the  disappointment  of 
many  secretaries  who  aspired  to  the  higher 
office,  and  were  beaten. 

Day  and  night,  therefore,  while  the  conclave 
lasts,  it  is  the  scene  of  conferences.  Faction 
quietly  measures  forces  with  faction ;  neutrals 
of  the  "  flying  squadron,"  uncommitted  to 
any  candidate,  are  eagerly  solicited  by  all. 
Rumors  and  innuendoes  do  equal  service  with 
arguments.  If  a  faction  has  reason  to  expect 
that  one  of  the  powers  will  veto  its  candidate, 
it  first  puts  forward  a  sham  candidate  to  draw 
the  veto ;  that  done,  it  can  safely  work  for  the 
election  of  its  favorite.  Sometimes  still  more 
disingenuous  ruses  are  resorted  to.  When  it 
became  evident  in  the  conclave  of  1799-1800 
that  Cardinal  Bellisomi  would  be  chosen  on 
the  next  ballot,  Cardinal  Herzan,  by  intimat- 
ing that  the  choice  might  be  distasteful  to 
Austria,  actually  persuaded  Bellisomi's  sup- 
porters to  postpone  the  final  vote  for  a  fort- 
night, until  a  messenger  could  be  sent  to 
Vienna  and  return.  Whether  the  messenger 


192  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

ever  came  back  is  not  reported;  but  it  mat- 
tered not,  for  the  delay  sufficed  to  ruin  Bel- 
lisomi's  chances.  In  1823  a  candidate  \vho 
had  almost  reached  the  goal  was  defeated  by 
the  rumor  that  he  had  once  drunk  chocolate 
on  a  fast  day.  In  1829  Cardinal  Castiglione 
had  thirty-five  votes,  more  than  the  required 
number,  but  it  was  announced  that  one  vote 
was  lacking  from  the  total,  which  vitiated  the 
ballot.  Suspicion  fell  on  two  scrutators,  one 
of  whom  is  supposed  to  have  hidden  the  miss- 
ing vote  in  his  sleeve.  The  next  day,  how- 
ever, Castiglione  was  chosen  by  an  increased 
majority.  These  instances,  which  might  be 
indefinitely  augmented  from  the  testimony 
of  those  who  took  part  in  and  left  records  of 
conclaves,  will  show  that  cardinals,  whatever 
they  may  profess,  do  not  rely  wholly  on  divine 
guidance  in  their  selection  of  a  pope. 

At  last,  however,  the  final  ballot  is  reached, 
and  the  scrutators  proclaim  that,  two  thirds 
of  the  votes  having  been  cast  for  one  cardinal, 
he  is  elected.  If  he  has  only  the  required 
number  of  votes,  they  open  the  ballots  to 
make  sure  that  he  did  not  vote  for  himself,  a 
precaution  rarely  taken,  because  nearly  always 
the  outcome  of  the  decisive  ballot  is  foreseen, 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  193 

and  there  is  a  stampede  to  the  candidate  who 
has  been  agreed  upon.  As  soon  as  he  an- 
nounces his  acceptance  of  the  triple  crown, 
all  the  other  cardinals  lower  the  baldachins 
over  their  thrones,  and  conduct  him  to  the 
altar.  Papal  robes  are  brought,  and  when  he 
has  been  dressed  in  garments  that  fit  him, 
the  Sacred  College  performs  the  first  act  of 
adoration,  or  homage,  to  the  new  sovereign. 

Meanwhile  the  news  has  spread  from  the 
chapel  to  the  other  parts  of  the  palace.  The 
masons  tear  down  the  plaster  wall  before 
one  of  the  balconies,  from  which  the  head 
Cardinal  Deacon  proclaims  the  election  to  the 
expectant  throngs  beneath,  saying  substan- 
tially, for  example,  "  We  have  a  Pope,  Cardi- 
nal Pecci,  who  has  taken  the  name  Leo  XIII." 
When  Pius  IX  was  elected,  he  himself  came 
to  the  balcony  and  blessed  the  people. 

In  due  time  other  ceremonies,  prescribed 
by  canon  or  custom, are  observed.  The  second 
act  of  adoration  takes  place  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel.  Then  the  pontiff  is  borne  into  St. 
Peter's  on  the  papal  litter,  attendants  wav- 
ing huge  fans  of  white  peacocks'  feathers 
beside  him,  and  the  cardinals  and  prelates 
follow  in  procession.  Reaching  the  high  altar, 


194  THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE 

he  sits  on  a  cushion  placed  upon  it,  and  while 
the  Te  Deum  is  chanted  the  cardinals  go 
through  the  third  act  of  adoration,  kissing  his 
hand  and  foot,  and  being  embraced  by  him 
in  return,  after  which  he  bestows  the  papal 
benediction  on  the  multitudes  in  the  vast 
basilica. 

The  coronation  —  the  final  pageant,  and 
the  most  gorgeous  of  all — is  celebrated  a  few 
days  later.  It  begins  in  the  atrium  of  St. 
Peter's,  where  the  Pope,  seated  on  a  throne, 
receives  the  homage  of  the  archpriest  and 
clergy  of  the  basilica.  Thence  he  is  borne  in 
procession  through  the  church  to  St.  Greg- 
ory's Chapel,  where  he  is  attired  in  the  pon- 
tifical robes  of  state.  As  he  comes  out,  a  master 
of  ceremonies  stops  him  and,  kneeling,  holds 
before  him  a  silver  wand  tipped  with  tow, 
which  a  cleric  lights.  As  the  tow  burns,  the 
master  of  ceremonies  sings,  "  Sancte  Pater, 
sic  transit  gloria  mundi."  After  a  second 
burning  of  tow,  which  symbolizes  the  evan- 
escence of  even  papal  pomp,  the  Pope  pro- 
ceeds to  the  high  altar  to  receive  the  pallium. 
Mass  is  celebrated,  during  which  the  general 
clergy  do  homage;  that  concluded,  the  Pope 
is  borne  to  the  balcony  which  overlooks  the 


THE  ELECTION  OF  A  POPE  195 

square  of  St.  Peter's,  and  there,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  tens  of  thousands  of  spectators,  the 
mitre  having  been  taken  off,  the  triple  crown 
is  placed  on  his  head  by  the  second  Cardinal 
Deacon.  "Receive  the  tiara  adorned  -with 
three  crowns, "  —  thus  runs  the  ancient  for- 
mula,— "and  know  that  thou  art  the  father 
of  princes  and  kings,  the  rector  of  the  globe, 
the  vicar  on  earth  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ, 
to  whom  is  honor  and  glory,  world  without 
end."  The  Pope  then  gives  his  benediction, 
"urbi  et  orbi,"  the  multitude  applauds,  and 
the  pageant  ends.1 

1  The  proceedings  as  described  above  correspond  to  the 
canons,  and  to  practices  at  most  of  the  conclaves  in  the  19th 
century.  There  have  been,  of  course,  slight  variations.  In 
the  conclave  of  1903  Cardinal  Rampolla  was  excluded  by 
the  veto  of  Austria.  Pins  X,  the  Pope  elected  in  his  stead, 
is  reported  to  have  ruled  that  the  veto  will  not  be  permitted 
in  future  conclaves. 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN 
PROGRESS l 

I  FIRST  saw  Rome  in  the  spring  of  1877, 
after  I  had  already  spent  the  larger  part  of 
two  years  in  Tuscany  and  Naples.  Return- 
ing to  the  Eternal  City  in  the  spring  of  1903 
—  with  many  intervening  visits  behind  me  — 
I  was  struck  by  a  new  spirit  in  the  air,  a 
more  hopeful  tone,  a  feeling  that  an  era  of 
true  prosperity  lies  just  ahead.  About  no 
other  country  have  foreigners  written  so 
much ;  yet  of  none  have  they  in  general  so 
little  intimate  knowledge.  Month  after  month 
and  year  after  year  they  draw  up  their  in- 
dictments against  a  whole  people ;  they  rail 
against  the  corruption,  the  poverty,  the  in- 
competence, the  incapacity ;  they  prophesy 
glibly  enough  the  destruction  of  the  king- 
dom ;  they  restore  the  temporal  Pope,  or  split 
up  the  Peninsula  into  half  a  dozen  feeble 
confederate  States,  with  the  ease  with  which 
children  blow  soap-bubbles.  Italy  is  the  para- 

1  The  World's  Work,  New  York,  September,  1903. 


200    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

dise  of  foreign  pessimists,  the  Cockayne  of 
political  prophets. 

Her  defects  are  so  open,  her  sins  so  salient, 
that  everybody  can  diagnose  them ;  they  may 
be  the  same  defects,  the  same  sins,  which 
abound  in  the  foreigner's  own  country,  but 
he  is  so  used  to  seeing  them  there  that  he 
would  never  think  of  asserting  that  they 
must  hurry  his  country  to  destruction.  At 
home  he  knows  what  other  forces  are  at  work 
to  stem  the  evil,  if  not  to  extirpate  it;  but 
in  Italy  he  sees  only  the  evil,  and  conse- 
quently consigns  that  beloved  land  to  perdi- 
tion. What  Italy  has  achieved  since  she  be- 
came a  kingdom  is  so  commonly  overlooked 
that  it  will  be  novel,  at  least,  to  state  briefly 
here  some  of  the  progress  made,  for  it  is 
this  positive  achievement,  overlooked  by  the 
pessimists,  among  whom  are  to  be  reckoned 
many  Italians  themselves,  which  explains  why 
Italy  has  not  collapsed  at  any  one  of  the  score 
of  crises  when  the  gloomy  foreboders  pre- 
dicted that  collapse  was  inevitable. 

To  all  the  nations  of  the  West  the  nine- 
teenth century  set  two  tasks — the  establish- 
ment of  political  liberty  through  the  adoption 
of  some  form  of  representative  government, 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    201 

and  the  creation  of  an  economic  system  based 
upon  modern  methods  of  production  and 
transportation.  These  the  common  tasks; 
but  as  Italy  down  to  1860  was  not  a  nation 
at  all,  she  had  to  secure  independence  and 
union  before  she  could  take  her  place  among 
the  nations  and  join  in  their  competition  of 
modern  civilization. 

Her  political  regeneration  began  in  Pied- 
mont about  1850.  Piedmont  had  the  advant- 
age over  the  other  Italian  States  of  being 
independent,  and  as  she  never  shared  in  the 
glories  of  the  Renaissance,  so  she  had  escaped 
the  enervation  which  followed  upon  them. 
Her  people  were  thrifty,  matter-of-fact,  bluff, 
backward  in  many  things,  but  backward  from 
slowness  of  growth,  not  from  exhaustion.  In 
ten  years  the  little  country,  under  the  master- 
ful guidance  of  Cavour,  was  wonderfully 
transformed.  It  proved  its  ability  for  parlia- 
mentary government ;  it  leaped  forward  in 
industry,  in  commerce,  in  improved  methods 
of  agriculture ;  it  organized  a  well-disciplined 
army  and  a  small  navy;  it  introduced  a  mod- 
ern judiciary,  abolished  ecclesiastical  and  class 
privileges,  constructed  railways  and  tele- 
graphs, proclaimed  freedom  of  speech  and  of 


202    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

press,  and  provided  for  popular  education. 
Probably  nowhere  else  in  the  world  has  a 
community  emerged  so  rapidly  from  medieval 
into  modern  conditions:  and  the  transforma- 
tion was  not  only  swift  but  solid. 

When,  however,  Lombardy  and  the 
Marches,  Tuscany  and  Naples,  suddenly  freed 
from  their  tyrants,  joined  Piedmont  to  form 
the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  the  task  was  greatly 
complicated.  Not  one  of  these  States  had  had 
any  experience  in  self-government:  they  had 
lived  under  different  systems  of  law,  of  trade, 
of  agriculture,  of  education.  While  Tuscany 
had  enjoyed  a  mild  despotism,  Naples  had 
been  brutalized  by  seventy  years  of  the  worst 
of  all  Bourbon  governments.  In  Lombardy 
the  Austrians  had  protected  the  tradesman  or 
farmer  by  fairly  just  laws  so  long  as  he  did 
not  meddle  with  politics ;  in  the  States  of  the 
Church,  where  there  were  not  idleness  and 
beggary,  there  was  economic  chaos.  In  the 
South,  the  feudal  regime  still  survived,  al- 
though it  had  been  officially  abolished  by  the 
French.  To  these  clashing  conditions  must 
be  added  the  subtler  but  not  less  vital  antagon- 
isms rooted  in  local  or  family  jealousies,  and 
the  plotting  of  the  ousted  despots,  of  Austrian, 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    203 

Pope,  and  Bourbon  —  to  recover  their  ground, 
by  intrigue  if  they  could,  and,  failing  therein, 
to  stir  up  dissensions  to  paralyze  the  high 
purposes  of  the  new  kingdom. 

Until  unity  and  independence  were  won, 
the  force  of  these  difficulties  could  not  be 
computed ;  and,  indeed,  during  the  struggle 
itself  a  great  wave  of  patriotism  swept  every- 
thing before  it.  Borne  along  by  that  wave, 
men  of  the  North,  men  of  the  Centre,  and 
men  of  the  South  felt  themselves  all  to  be 
Italians  and  brothers,  and  were  justified  in 
believing  that  everything  was  possible  to  a 
cause  of  which  Cavour  was  the  head  and  Gari- 
baldi the  heart.  But  after  the  enthusiasm  of 
war  came  the  sober  demands  of  peace;  upon 
the  swift,  brilliant  years  of  heroism  followed 
the  slow,  toilsome,  economic  decades.  Twenty- 
one  millions  of  Italians  had  suddenly,  by  a 
magnificent  exertion,  raised  themselves  out  of 
political  servitude,  but  that  feat  could  not 
of  itself  qualify  them  to  live  successfully  their 
new  political  life  of  freedom,  any  more  than 
it  could  fit  them  to  run  without  apprentice- 
ship the  locomotives,  telegraphs,  and  thousand 
other  machines  of  the  new  economic  era. 

The  immediate  duty  of  Victor  Emmanuel's 


204    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

government,  therefore,  was  to  put  into  opera- 
tion uniform  laws ;  to  secure  a  uniform  fiscal 
and  political  administration;  to  open  schools 
of  uniform  grades,  leading  up  to  universities ; 
to  make  the  Sicilian  and  the  Venetian,  the 
Piedmontese  and  the  Romagnole,  who  had 
for  centuries  been  swayed  by  an  intensely 
local  patriotism,  feel  that  Italy,  and  not  their 
town  or  province,  was  henceforth  their  true 
country.  In  other  words,  having  achieved 
unity  from  outside,  there  must  now  be  built 
up  the  deeper,  essential  unity  from  within. 
How  hard  this  is  in  the  face  of  conflicting 
material  or  class  interests  we  Americans 
learned  when  our  own  Union  was  in  jeopardy  j 
yet  the  difference  of  conditions  between  our 
North  and  South  was  scarcely  greater  than 
that  between  Lombardy  and  Calabria  forty 
years  ago. 

Nevertheless,  Italian  unity  is  unquestion- 
ably stronger  to-day  than  it  was  ten  years  ago. 
The  internal  blending  has  gone  on  toward 
the  point  of  fusion,  although  new  causes  of 
local  antipathy  have  sprung  up.  The  North, 
with  its  better -educated  people,  under  the 
stimulus  of  capital  and  favorable  conditions 
of  production  and  distribution,  has  become 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    205 

overwhelmingly  industrial ;  the  South,  still 
checked  by  poverty,  ignorance,  and  invet- 
erate economic  abuses,  which  it  can  slough 
off  only  too  slowly,  remains  almost  exclus- 
ively agricultural.  As  a  result,  one  section 
regards  the  other  too  much  as  an  enemy. 
The  Southerner  grumbles  that  he  is  taxed 
proportionately  more  heavily  than  the  North- 
erner, and  given  less  in  return ;  and  this  is 
true,  for,  just  as  in  the  United  States,  the 
protected  manufacturer  at  the  North  enjoys 
government  bounties  in  the  form  of  tariffs 
which  do  not  benefit  his  agricultural  brother 
in  the  South.  In  Italy,  however,  it  is  less 
easy  than  in  the  United  States  to  persuade 
the  victim  of  protection  that  he  is  being  en- 
riched by  it. 

This  clash  of  interests,  with  the  fiscal  in- 
equalities springing  from  it,  naturally  causes 
sectional  resentments  ;  but  were  Italy  as- 
sailed from  abroad,  or  were  she  threatened 
from  the  inside,  the  Northerner  and  the 
Southerner  would  leap  to  her  defense.  For- 
eigners make  a  huge  mistake  when  they  in- 
fer that  sectional  bickerings,  or  even  sharp 
criticism  and  mutual  recriminations,  imply 
national  weakness  in  Italy.  There  are  kin- 


206    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

dred  the  strength  of  whose  family  spirit  is 
best  measured  by  the  vigor  with  which  each 
member  expresses  his  individual  opinions. 

Whatever  sectional  or  class  antagonism 
may  have  been  created  by  the  spread  of 
industrialism  is  not  peculiar  to  Italy.  The 
rapid  manufacturing  expansion  of  the  North 
proves  that  the  Italians  can  avail  themselves 
not  less  successfully  than  other  nations  of 
the  modern  industrial  agents ;  and  they  have 
done  this  against  a  tremendous  handicap, 
for  Italy  lacks  the  two  indispensable  ele- 
ments, iron  and  coal,  which  she  has  to  pur- 
chase abroad.  If  we  turn  to  the  latest  vol- 
ume of  statistics,  we  find  that  in  Italy  — 
including  Sicily  and  Sardinia  —  there  are 
nearly  18,000  kilometres  of  railways,  besides 
3500  kilometres  of  mechanical  tramways ; 
about  50,000  kilometres  of  telegraphs ;  more 
than  400  steamships  and  5700  sailing  vessels, 
of  a  total  net  tonnage  of  nearly  1,000,000 
tons  ;  that  she  spends  every  year  about 
$38,600,000  on  coal ;  that  her  native  in- 
dustrial companies  have  $289,500,000  of 
paid-up  capital,  while  foreign  companies 
have  about  half  that  amount ;  that  her  pro- 
gress in  applied  electricity  has  been  very 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    207 

rapid,  —  in  three  years,  from  1896  to  1899, 
her  production  of  electrical  horse-power 
increased  from  50,000  to  100,000 ;  that  in 
1900  the  cotton  industry  product  was  valued 
at  $58,000,000 ;  that  her  chemical  product 
doubled  between  1893  and  1899,  when  it 
reached  $10,000,000  ;  that  the  output  of 
her  paper-mills  has  doubled  in  fifteen  years. 
These  are  figures  which  stand  for  facts  — 
they  cannot  be  gainsaid ;  they  invariably 
escape  the  notice  of  the  foreign  and  native 
writers  of  jeremiads  on  Italy.  In  forty 
years  the  population,  after  deducting  a  large 
number  of  emigrants  (probably  4,000,000 
now  live  outside  of  Italy),  has  risen  from 
25,000,000  to  33,000,000  souls,  or  about 
one  third  ;  meanwhile,  the  value  of  her  an- 
nual products  has  quadrupled,  if  they  have 
not  quintupled,  —  exactness  is  impossible, 
owing  to  the  imperfect  records  kept  in  the 
bureaus  of  the  Old  Regime. 

If  this  comparison  does  not  betoken  pro- 
sperity, at  least  it  indicates  that  the  Italians 
have  readily  adapted  themselves  to  our  in- 
dustrial era.  They  started  nearly  one  hun- 
dred years  behind  England  and  sixty  years 
behind  France ;  they  lacked  capital ;  they 


208    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

lacked  something  more  important  —  enter- 
prise ;  the  inertia  of  tradition  weighed  on 
their  industries  as  it  still  weighs  on  their 
agriculture ;  and  over  all  spread  a  political 
palsy.  A  single  generation  of  Free  Italy  has 
wrought  these  immense  changes. 

And  yet  the  stranger,  blind  to  these  evi- 
dences of  progress,  sees  only  the  poverty, 
which  he  thinks  is  universal,  helpless,  incur- 
able. But  if  you  know  Italy,  you  know  that 
the  areas  of  poverty  vary  greatly  in  extent. 
At  Turin,  for  instance,  you  rarely  see  a  beg- 
gar, whereas  some  quarters  of  Naples  seem 
to  have  no  other  inhabitants.  Wages  of  farm 
laborers  and  of  mill-hands  are  often  desper- 
ately low,  and  employment,  especially  for  the 
agriculturists,  is  not  steady.  In  certain  re- 
gions and  seasons  a  farm  laborer  can  earn 
barely  fifteen  cents  a  day,  and  he  regards 
twice  that  sum  as  large  pay  anywhere ;  but 
we  must  remember  that  he  can  buy  the  neces- 
saries of  life  very  cheaply.  Actual  starvation 
overtakes  those  districts  which  rely  on  a  sin- 
gle crop,  if  that  crop  fails.  Misery  is  en- 
demic in  more  than  one  ill-favored  locality. 
To  escape  these  evils,  the  peasants  emigrate 
in  myriads,  while  other  myriads  flock  to 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    209 

the   cities   to  swell  the  ranks  of   the  sub- 
merged. 

Again,  these  phenomena  are  not  peculiar 
to  Italy :  they  are  the  grim  facts  which  con- 
front modern  civilization.  The  cardinal  social 
achievement  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
the  discovery  of  the  slum.  Before  that,  the 
slum  had  been  taken  for  granted  —  accepted 
as  a  necessary  evil  —  from  the  earliest  times. 
Charitable  institutions  had,  of  course,  ex- 
isted, and  paupers  had  had  their  dole  of  soup 
and  bread,  with  an  occasional  penny,  but  it 
no  more  occurred  to  even  the  benevolent  to 
stamp  out  pauperism  than  it  shocked  them 
to  keep  slaves.  In  Italy,  under  the  Old  Regime 
the  slum  itself  was  almost  a  privileged  insti- 
tution. The  States  of  the  Church  swarmed 
with  beggars,  to  whom  Pius  IX  showed  spe- 
cial indulgence;  how,  indeed,  could  a  Church 
which  encouraged  the  Mendicant  Orders, 
sodden  in  idleness  and  carnality,  effectively  re- 
prove untonsured  mendicants?  The  Neapol- 
itan Bourbons  actually  based  their  throne  on 
the  slums:  the  league  between  Ferdinand  I 
or  his  grandson,  Bomba,  and  the  lazzaroni 
of  Naples  was  so  close  that,  thanks  to  it,  the 
King  more  than  once  stifled  the  efforts  of  the 


210    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

decent  minority ;  and  when  Victor  Emmanuel 
entered  Naples  in  1860  he  found  90,000  pro- 
fessed lazzaroni  —  criminals  of  every  grade, 
from  the  most  brutal  assassin  to  the  sneak- 
thief,  idler,  drunkard,  low  debauchee,  tramp 
-  who  avowedly  had  no  honest  employ- 
ment. 

How  stands  the  matter  to-day?  Italy  has 
declared  war  on  the  slum.  The  worst  parts 
of  Naples  have  been  demolished;  new  broad 
streets  bring  light  and  pure  air  into  what 
were  lately  the  most  unhealthful  wards  of 
Rome;  that  reeking  sty,  the  Florentine  Mer- 
cato  Vecchio  and  its  neighborhood,  is  an 
open  piazza;  the  blocks  of  squalid  buildings 
which  crowded  the  Duomo  at  Milan  have 
been  swept  away  to  make  room  for  one  of 
the  noblest  squares  in  Europe.  At  each  of 
these  improvements  the  voice  of  the  sickly 
esthetes  was  raised  —  "  Vandalism !  "  they 
murmured.  "  The  Roman  Ghetto  was  so 
picturesque  !  "  "  The  Old  Market  at  Florence 
had  such  delightful  medieval  associations  !  " 
To  these  sentimentalists  the  life,  health,  and 
morals  of  the  living  citizens  of  Rome  or  Na- 
ples or  Florence  are  nothing.  What,  indeed, 
could  improved  drainage  or  lowered  death- 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    211 

rate  mean  to  foreigners  in  pursuit  of  what 
they  mistake  for  cultural  emotions  ? 

In  every  city  and  in  almost  every  town  of 
Italy  this  beneficent  "  vandalism  "  has  been 
carried  forward.  Naples  has  now  one  of  the 
finest  water-supplies  in  the  world ;  Rome, 
which  was  so  miasmatic  that  during  the 
last  year  of  the  Papal  Government  the  Ecu- 
menical Council  dreaded  to  sit  there  on  the 
approach  of  warm  weather,  is  now  a  salubri- 
ous abode.  Sanitation  has  been  pushed  not 
only  in  the  cities,  but  in  the  country  also, 
where  immense  tracts  of  malarious  or  unpro- 
ductive land  have  been  reclaimed. 

This  war  against  poverty  has  been  waged 
on  the  material  side  by  substituting  hygienic 
for  disease-breeding  conditions;  on  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  side  it  has  been  waged  by 
education.  The  Old  Regime  and  the  Church 
hated  schools,  and  very  naturally,  since  their 
grip  on  the  masses  depended  on  keeping 
them  in  ignorance.  Fifty  years  ago  Italian 
peasants  and  servants  were  almost  wholly 
illiterate.  The  New  Regime  has  reduced 
illiteracy  until  now  less  than  a  third  of  the 
adult  males  and  one  half  of  the  adult  females 
are  illiterate.  The  proportion  varies  from  five 


212    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

per  cent  in  Turin  to  ninety  per  cent  in  Cala- 
bria. Piedmont  makes  a  better  showing  than 
Pennsylvania  in  education,  for  in  1900,  out 
of  1,330,000  Pennsylvanians  of  voting  age, 
140,000  were  illiterate.  Unfortunately,  com- 
pulsion cannot  be  carried  everywhere  into 
practice,  because  poverty  prevents  many  child- 
ren from  attending  even  the  public  schools. 

Thus  is  Italy  using  education,  the  master 
weapon,  against  error,  ignorance,  and  crime. 
She  has  placed  in  every  commune,  in  every 
hamlet,  a  school,  and  although  the  number  of 
her  illiterate  is  large,  she  has  already  made 
immense  progress.  To  cite  only  two  symp- 
toms :  first,  the  number  of  homicides  fell 
from  5418  in  1880  to  3749  in  1898,  a  fig- 
ure which  will  compare  favorably  with  the 
estimated  10,000  violent  deaths  a  year  in 
the  United  States ;  secondly,  the  percentage 
of  illegitimate  births  has  fallen  from  7.35  in 
1881  to  6.14  in  1889.  Illegitimacy  is  still 
most  common  in  Romagna,  Latium,  and 
Umbria  (reaching  142  per  1000  births  in 
Umbria),  the  former  States  of  the  Church : 
a  significant  fact. 

The  kingdom  is  well  provided  with  savings 
institutions,  public  and  private,  which  have 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    213 

deposits  to  the  value  of  2,500,000,000  lire,  or 
$500,000,000,  an  amount  which,  considering 
the  resources  of  the  country,  ought  to  cheer 
even  the  pessimists.  As  we  come  to  know 
better  the  social  and  economic  conditions  of 
our  own  country,  we  get  over  the  pleasant 
assumption  that  Americans  and  British  are 
all  prosperous  —  a  fallacy  perhaps  due  to  the 
fact  that  until  lately  the  acquaintance  of 
social  philosophers  was  limited  to  the  well- 
to-do.  In  the  United  States,  for  instance, 
there  are  now  millions  of  persons  whose  out- 
look can  hardly  be  brighter  than  that  of  the 
least  prosperous  Italians.  The  "poor  white 
trash  "  of  our  South  can  be  matched  against 
the  most  backward  South  Italians ;  the  dere- 
lict medievals  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee 
are  the  counterpart  of  the  brigands  of  the 
Abruzzi  and  of  the  Sardinian  mountaineers. 
Nor  are  the  British  Isles  an  exception.  Less 
than  sixty  years  ago  1,000,000  Irish  died  of 
famine  while  luxury  went  on  unabated  in 
England;  and  only  last  year  (1902)  an  eco- 
nomic census  of  York  showed  that  23,000 
out  of  the  70,000  inhabitants  of  that  typical 
fairly  prosperous  English  town  live  habitu- 
ally below  the  starvation-line. 


214    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

Instead  of  holding  up  our  hands  in  horror 
at  the  poverty  and  illiteracy  of  Italy,  we 
should  inquire  whether  the  poverty  is  greater, 
the  illiteracy  more  widespread  than  in  1860 : 
and  to  these  questions  there  can  be  but  one 
answer.  Moreover,  to  the  Kingdom  of  Italy 
belongs  the  credit  for  this  stupendous  pro- 
gress :  had  the  Bourbons  ruled  in  Naples,  the 
Pope  in  Rome,  the  Grand  Duke  in  Tuscany, 
during  the  past  forty  years,  there  would 
have  been  no  such  modernizing.  So  far  as 
concerns  economic  and  educational  require- 
ments, we  must  conclude  that  United  Italy 
has  proved  herself  fit  for  the  new  era. 

Look  now  at  her  political  growth.  We  see 
many  blunders,  much  incapacity,  much  posi- 
tive corruption.  Recent  historians  almost 
unanimously  agree  in  unfolding  crisis  after 
crisis,  each  of  which  seemed  certain  to  wreck 
the  newly  launched  monarchy.  Just  recall  a 
few  of  these  crises :  Garibaldi's  crazy  expedi- 
tion, connived  at  by  Rattazzi,  and  ending  in 
the  distressing  conflict  at  Aspromoute  in 
1862;  the  September  Convention  in  1864; 
the  publication,  also  in  1864,  of  the  "  Sylla- 
bus," by  which  Pius  IX  hoped  to  inflame 
the  Catholic  world  against  Italy ;  Garibaldi's 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    215 

second  imprudence,  ending  at  Mentana,  in 
1867 ;  the  adoption  by  the  Pope  of  an  irre- 
concilable attitude  after  the  liberation  of 
Eome  in  1870 ;  hard  times  and  prospective 
bankruptcy,  1873-75;  the  death  of  Victor 
Emmanuel,  testing  the  dynastic  principle, 
January,  1878 ;  the  death  of  Pius  IX,  which 
the  Papalists  hoped  would  render  acute  the 
question  of  the  Temporal  Power,  February, 
1878  ;  the  Irredentist  riots  in  1878 ;  popular 
indignation  over  the  French  occupation  of 
Tunis  in  1881 ;  the  disaster  at  Dogali  —  the 
first  retribution  for  the  Abyssinian  folly  —  in 
1888 ;  the  commercial  rupture  with  France, 
leading  to  great  distress  throughout  Italy, 
1889 ;  the  recrudescence  of  Papal  hostility, 
1887-89;  the  Roman  Bank  scandals,  reveal- 
ing peculation  on  an  immense  scale,  and  in- 
volving many  prominent  public  men,  1893 ; 
distress,  riots,  and  martial  law  in  Sicily, 
1893—95 ;  the  rout  of  the  Italian  army  at 
Adua,  and  collapse  of  Italy's  Abyssinian 
folly,  1896 ;  the  bread  riots,  culminating  in 
bloodshed  at  Milan  in  1898 ;  the  assassina- 
tion of  King  Humbert,  again  testing  the 
strength  of  the  monarchy,  July  29,  1900. 
Here  are  a  few  items  —  the  list  might  be 


216    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

greatly  lengthened  —  which  enemies  of  Italy, 
and  doubtless  many  among  her  friends,  have 
cited  to  prove  that  the  kingdom  could  not 
endure.  And  even  in  addition  to  these  spe- 
cific symptoms,  there  were  to  be  overcome 
the  sleepless  intrigues  of  the  Vatican,  the 
incompetence  of  legislators,  the  propaganda 
of  Republican  and  Socialist  partisans,  the 
tenacious  Past,  the  limited  financial  resources. 
Nevertheless,  1903  saw  the  nation  stronger 
than  she  was  in  1893,  or  in  1883,  or  in  1873. 
The  voyage  has  always  been  stormy,  some- 
times desperate,  but  Italy  has  weathered 
every  gale,  and  she  forges  ahead  to-day  better 
manned  and  equipped  than  for  a  long  time 
past.  Is  it  not  a  queer  sort  of  logic  which 
concludes  that  a  ship  which  has  outlived  so 
many  perils  was  unsea worthy  from  the  start  ? 
Many  of  the  evident  mistakes  of  the  last 
thirty  years  can  fairly  be  charged  to  lack  of 
parliamentary  experience.  The  masses  were 
uneducated,  and  generations  of  Papal  and 
Absolutist  misrule  had  corrupted  the  general 
character  of  the  people.  Under  the  Old 
Regime  there  could  be  no  citizens  :  the  rela- 
tions between  the  oppressed  subject  and  the 
despotic  ruler,  far  from  fostering  those  civic 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    217 

qualities  which  we  look  for  in  freemen,  trained 
instead  the  baser  instincts  —  cringing  hypo- 
crisy, cowardice  toward  those  above,  greed 
and  cruelty  and  arrogance  toward  those  below. 
It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the 
Italian  Parliament  has  often  failed  to  solve 
the  great  problems  set  for  it ;  nor  that  the 
type  of  public  man  who  has  come  to  the  front 
has  often  been  the  astute  politician,  the 
intriguer,  the  demagogue,  the  boss.  Since 
Cavour  died,  Italy  has  had  no  statesman  of 
transcendent  power;  but  in  Ricasoli,  Min- 
ghetti,  Sella,  Lanza,  and  other  survivors  of  the 
heroic  epoch,  she  had  leaders  of  stainless  in- 
tegrity, who  were  true  patriots.  That  the  new 
generation  should  breed  politicians  and  not 
statesmen  seems  inevitable.  Italy  was  made 
—  the  day  for  heroic  sacrifices  was  past ;  the 
day  of  immense  spending  had  come — of 
honest  spending,  to  lift  the  new  kingdom  up 
to  the  modern  plane ;  of  injudicious  spend- 
ing, on  public  works  before  they  were  needed ; 
of  dishonest  spending,  to  enrich  corrupt 
politicians  and  their  gang.  Our  Whisky  Ring, 
Credit  Mobilier  Ring,  Star  Route  Robbers, 
Sugar  Ring  Senators,  and  other  rascals  have 
had  their  counterparts  in  Italy,  and  in  Italy, 


218    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

as  in  the  United  States,  they  have  generally 
gone  unpunished.  This  grave  blot  cannot 
therefore  be  charged  to  the  Italians  alone, 
nor  can  it  be  used  as  evidence  of  their  unfit- 
ness  for  self-government.  It  is  the  curse  of 
the  age:  it  has  blackened  modern  France;  it 
has  smutched  England. 

So  it  will  not  do  to  single  Italy  out  as 
a  failure  in  parliamentary  government  on  the 
ground  that  her  public  men  have  been  cor- 
rupt or  incompetent.  The  effects  of  their 
corruption  or  incompetence  have  been  more 
apparent  because  she  is  weaker  than  France, 
or  England,  or  the  United  States,  countries 
which,  like  strong  men,  can  stand  dissipation 
which  would  kill  a  weakling.  But  her  com- 
parative weakness  has  been  also  a  safeguard : 
for  it  has  registered  almost  immediately  a 
warning  after  each  excess.  Her  worst  folly — 
the  chase  for  a  colonial  empire  in  Eritrea  and 
Abyssinia — began  at  once  to  plague  her:  in 
1886  Nemesis  smote  her  at  Dogali ;  in  1896, 
after  Adua,  she  heeded  the  warning.  "The 
Abyssinian  campaign  gave  us  our  colonial 
anti-toxin  treatment,"  a  keen  Italian  financier 
said  to  me ;  "  it  was  costly  and  made  us  very 
sick,  but  it  cured  us." 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    219 

The  over-taxation  of  Italy  is  so  common 
a  theme  that  I  need  not  enlarge  upon  it.  Her 
public  debt  averages  about  $80  per  capita — 
nearly  as  much  as  the  French,  although  in 
paying  capacity  France  far  outranks  her. 
Even  so,  for  this  sum  Italy  has  provided  her- 
self in  three  decades  with  the  outfit  of  modern 
civilization.  Her  neighbors,  richer  to  start 
with,  have  had  from  fifty  to  one  hundred 
years  in  which  to  get  theirs.  This  sum  repre- 
sents, further,  the  debts  of  the  old  govern- 
ments, which  she  swallowed  up,  and  the  cost 
of  her  wars  of  liberation  in  1859,  1860,  and 
1866.  Free  government,  even  when  most 
economically  administered,  costs  more  than 
despotic,  and  thus  far  it  has  nowhere  been 
economical.  Conceding  all  that  pessimists 
urge  against  the  financial  errors  of  Italy,  we 
need  not,  on  that  account,  despair  of  her 
future.  If  financial  errors  alone  could  ruin 
a  nation,  the  United  States  would  have  long 
since  perished. 

Political  education  has  not  kept  pace  with 
the  needs  of  the  country,  and  centralization, 
which  tends  everywhere  to  preserve  the  form 
but  vitiate  the  essence  of  representative 
government,  has  been  partly  responsible  for 


220    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

this  backwardness.  But  centralization  could 
not  be  dispensed  with  in  the  early  years, 
when  the  planting  and  nurture  of  uniform 
national  ideals  transcended  all  other  needs. 
In  like  manner,  the  army  has  been  less  harm- 
ful in  Italy  than  elsewhere.  It  has  served 
to  unite  the  various  provinces  not  only  by 
making  their  conscripts  recognize  the  Italian 
flag  as  supreme,  but  also  by  mixing  the  vari- 
ous elements.  It  has  taught  millions  to  read 
and  write.  It  has  given  the  Italians,  who  had 
been  mercenaries  or  the  defenseless  subjects 
of  unspeakable  tyrants,  a  requisite  sense  of 
personal  and  national  honor,  and  of  devotion 
to  duty.  Finally,  it  has  bred  discipline  in  a 
race  which  had  grown  slack  and  shiftless. 

We  have  thus  far  considered  some  of  the 
obstacles  —  social,  economical,  and  educa- 
tional— against  which  the  Kingdom  of  Italy 
has  had  to  contend  in  its  struggle  toward 
a  sound  national  existence ;  we  must  now,  be- 
fore concluding,  glance  at  her  active  political 
enemies.  She  has  never  had  anything  to  fear 
from  the  dispossessed  Bourbon  pretenders, 
whose  following  in  Naples  and  the  Duchies  is 
as  dead  as  that  of  the  Stuarts  in  England, 
but  until  a  few  years  ago  her  peace  was  en- 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    221 

dangered  by  Republican  agitators.  They  did 
not  wish  to  shatter  her  unity,  but  they 
thought  that  by  establishing  a  republic  they 
could  cure  the  ills  which  they  charged  to  the 
Monarchy,  and  so  hasten  the  coming  of  the 
Mazzinian  Utopia.  Their  propaganda,  vigor- 
ous in  the  seventies  and  at  times  threatening 
in  the  eighties,  has  petered  out — partly  for 
lack  of  leaders;  partly  because  the  horse-sense 
of  the  vast  majority  of  the  Italians  shows 
them  that  the  Monarchy  is  the  principle  on 
which  they  can  best  agree  now,  whatever  may 
be  their  preferences  for  the  future;  and 
partly  because  the  Socialists  have  come  for- 
ward to  preach  that  through  Socialism  and 
not  through  the  Republic  the  desired  reforms 
must  be  sought. 

The  Socialists,  who  number  some  of  the 
best  educated  as  well  as  the  most  earnest 
Italians,  seem  to  hold  almost  the  balance  of 
power,  and  they  have  probably  not  reached 
their  full  strength.  Some  of  their  demands 
have  already  been  granted  in  other  countries ; 
only  their  extremists  hint  at  abolishing  the 
Monarchy.  With  proper  guidance,  they  must 
do  a  great  good  in  urging  on  social  and 
economic  improvements.  They  are  dangerous 


222    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

in  so  far  as  they  kindle  class  hatred  or  teach 
the  discontented  that  the  causes  of  their  dis- 
content can  be  removed  by  summarily  sweep- 
ing away  the  army,  or  the  Monarchy,  or 
individual  ownership  of  land,  or  industrial 
competition.  Their  true  mission  in  Italy  is 
education,  not  revolution:  for  no  revolution 
that  they  might  achieve  would  last,  unless 
the  people  were  educated  to  live  up  (or  down) 
to  it.  They  have  perforce  resorted  to  political 
methods;  they  have  made  unholy  alliances — 
witness  their  tacit  league  with  the  Clericals  in 
1898  —  which  will  come  back  to  plague 
them;  and  they  have  not  always  seemed  to 
work  disinterestedly;  but  among  them  com- 
paratively few  believe  in  violent  means,  and 
still  fewer  plot  against  Italian  unity. 

The  rise  of  Socialism  everywhere  betokens 
that  our  modern  world  is  seeking  to  readjust 
itself  on  economic  instead  of  on  political 
lines.  This  readjustment  will  certainly  not 
be  similar  in  all  countries.  In  despotic  Ger- 
many, for  instance,  Socialism  is  the  great 
protest  against  militarism  and  autocratic 
megalomania  ;  in  the  United  States  it  antago- 
nizes trusts;  in  Italy  it  has  a  broader  fulcrum 
of  poverty  for  its  lever,  but  less  intelligence 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    223 

and  a  greater  diversity  of  conditions,  and 
therefore  of  needs,  to  work  with.  Evidently, 
in  all  these  respects,  Italy  has  not  been  the 
exception  which  she  is  usually  painted.  She 
has  had  economic  and  agrarian  problems — 
offset  Sicily,  for  instance,  against  Ireland; 
she  has  tackled  the  slum;  she  has  spent 
wastefully;  she  has  bred  dishonest  politi- 
cians, and  she  has  now  to  reckon  with  Social- 
ism—  just  as  her  neighbors  have. 

But  in  addition  to  the  common  burden  of 
the  age,  Italy  has  had  to  bear  her  special 
cross  —  the  sleepless,  unscrupulous,  far-reach- 
ing enmity  of  the  Vatican.  She  has  had  to 
hear  French  and  American  Catholics  threaten 
to  deprive  her  of  her  capital,  although  they 
would  be  quick  to  resent  the  agitation  of 
Germans  or  British  to  hand  over  Paris  or 
Washington  to  a  foreign  hierarch.  The 
strongest  proof  of  the  stability  of  United 
Italy  is  the  fact  that  for  thirty  years  she  has 
permitted  her  arch-enemy  to  occupy  Rome. 
I  venture  to  think  that  no  other  nation  would 
have  done  this.  How  long  would  Prussia 
tolerate  in  Berlin  a  foreign  court  of  similar 
nature,  working  day  and  night  to  overthrow 
the  Prussian  Kingdom?  Can  one  suppose 


224    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

that  the  English,  who  used  to  go  into  hysterics 
•whenever  the  late  Doctor  Pusey  added  half 
an  inch  to  the  width  of  his  hat-brim,  would 
have  suffered  the  Pope  himself  to  dwell  in 
London  and  to  carry  on  with  France  and  the 
other  Catholic  powers  intrigues  for  the  re- 
storation of  Popery  and  the  Stuarts  in  Great 
Britain?  Or  should  we  Americans  hold  hands 
off  from  conspirators,  lay  or  clerical,  who 
avowedly  plotted  at  Washington  to  destroy 
the  Republic?  Yet  Italy  has  forborne  so  ad- 
mirably, as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  course,  that 
the  world  has  hardly  given  her  credit  for  it. 
She  has  suffered  vicariously  for  the  rest  of 
Christendom.  The  French  Catholics,  who 
would  not  tolerate  the  Pope  for  their  secular 
prince,  insist  that  the  Romans  and  Italians, 
who  repudiate  his  kingship,  shall  submit  to 
it.  The  Irish  Catholics  paid  little  heed  when 
Leo,  to  propitiate  the  English  Government, 
bade  them  abandon  their  patriotic  campaign ; 
yet  they  would  inflict  his  rule  on  Rome. 
That  Home  Rule  should  be  worth  dying  for 
in  Ireland,  but  must  be  tabooed  in  Rome,  is 
a  thoroughbred  Irish  bull.  Every  Papalist 
speaks  proudly  of  the  achievements  of  Leo; 
but  in  so  doing  he  gives  the  lie  to  the  Papal 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    225 

contention  that  without  the  Temporal  Power 
the  Pope  cannot  perform  his  functions. 
Equally  specious  is  the  claim  that  unless  the 
Pope  is  King  at  Rome,  foreign  Catholics 
may  suspect  that  his  policy  is  adopted  under 
pressure  from  the  Italian  Government — as  if 
France,  Spain,  and  Austria  had  not  for  cen- 
turies exercised  in  the  Conclave  the  right  of 
vetoing  any  cardinal  they  disliked,  who  ap- 
peared as  a  candidate  for  the  tiara ;  and  as  if, 
out  of  the  seventy  members  of  the  Cardinals' 
College,  a  safe  majority  were  not  always 
Italian,  to  make  certain  the  election  of  an 
Italian  pope. 

Simply  by  non-interference  Italy  has  de- 
monstrated the  speciousness  of  all  the  Papal 
claims.  She  has  been  able  to  do  this  because 
she  has  no  illusions  about  the  Church- 
Papacy.  She  never  confounds  the  religious 
with  the  secular.  She  has  no  fanaticism,  no 
rancor.  She  knows,  moreover,  that  the  Papal- 
ists  are  playing  a  great  game  of  bluff ;  she  is 
rather  amused  than  otherwise  that  foreigners 
should  be  taken  in  by  it.  If  some  Papal 
organ  laments  the  good  old  times  when 
everybody  was  happy  and  prosperous  under 
the  Pope's  rule,  the  Italian  smiles  much  as 


226    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

Mr.  Low  or  Mr.  Jerome  may  smile  when  a 
Tammany  organ  tearfully  regrets  the  Golden 
Age  of  virtue  and  prosperity  when  Richard 
Croker  was  the  boss  of  New  York  City. 
The  countrymen  of  Machiavelli  are  too  old 
in  worldly  wisdom  to  grow  hot  over  per- 
fectly obvious  political  tricks.  So  long  as  the 
Pope,  by  playing  prisoner,  can  reap  millions 
of  dollars  a  year,  they  are  generous  enough 
to  admit  that  he  would  be  a  fool  not  to  do  so. 
In  France,  the  Clericals  actually  sell  to  the 
superstitious  peasants  blades  of  the  straw 
"  which  the  Holy  Father  has  to  sleep  on  in 
his  dungeon."  "  Che  vuole?"  the  Italian 
asks  with  a  shrug.  "How  can  you  expect 
them  to  tell  the  truth  when  lying  is  so  lucra- 
tive?" 

How  desperate  the  Vatican  has  become 
appeared  in  the  league  of  Clericals  with  the 
Socialists,  and  more  recently,  in  the  Pope's 
rapprochement  with  Prussia  —  Protestant 
Prussia  —  to  compensate  for  the  loss  of 
prestige  in  France.  As  we  live  in  a  period 
of  reaction,  it  is  but  natural  that  the  Vatican 
and  Prussia,  the  two  strongholds  of  medi- 
evalism, should  at  last  clasp  hands.  So,  in  the 
reaction  after  Waterloo,  the  Vatican  clung 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    227 

to  Austria.  Furthermore,  it  is  a  great  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  all  Italian  ecclesiastics 
are  anti-national ;  many  of  them  are  intensely 
patriotic,  liberal  even,  and  they  would  never 
consent  to  see  the  nation  broken  up.  The 
pretense  that  a  great  body  of  Catholics  does 
not  vote  deceives  nobody ;  because  it  is 
known  that  nearly  the  same  number  of  votes 
are  cast  in  municipal  elections,  in  which  the 
Catholics  are  allowed  by  the  Pope  to  take 
part,  and  in  the  parliamentary  elections,  from 
which  the  Pope  tries  to  exclude  them.  There- 
fore, either  the  Catholic  voters  number  less 
than  five  per  cent,  or  they  vote  against  the 
Pope's  order:  whichever  alternative  we  take, 
the  claim  of  the  Papalists,  that  if  they  all 
went  to  the  polls  they  would  control  the 
country,  is  absurd. 

As  a  menace  to  Italian  unity,  the  question 
of  the  restoration  of  the  Pope's  temporal 
power  has  dwindled  almost  to  nothing.  No 
foreign  governments  are  likely  to  engage  in 
an  enterprise  which  would  impugn  their  own 
legitimacy ;  for  Leo  XIII  has  repeatedly  con- 
demned the  modern  heresy  that  governments 
derive  their  authority  from  the  consent  of 
the  governed  instead  of  from  Papal  sanction. 


228    THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS 

This  bigotry,  of  course,  outlaws  every  gov- 
ernment in  Christendom  —  for  even  the  King 
of  Spain  does  not  acknowledge  the  Pope  as 
his  political  over-lord. 

I  have  touched  on  the  material  and  polit- 
ical progress  of  the  kingdom  :  it  would  be 
pleasant  to  record  Italy's  attainments  in 
science,  literature,  and  the  arts ;  to  speak  of 
Carducci,  the  only  original  poet  in  Europe 
since  Victor  Hugo  died;  of  Fogazzaro,  and 
Verga,  and  De  Amicis,  conspicuous  in  fic- 
tion ;  of  Lombroso,  Morselli,  and  Ferri,  in 
psychology  ;  of  Villari,  in  history ;  of  Com- 
paretti  and  D' Ancona,  in  scholarship ;  of 
Ferrari,  in  sculpture ;  of  Morelli,  in  the  criti- 
cism of  art;  of  Marconi,  in  invention.  The 
generation  has  been  "practical  "  in  Italy, 
just  as  it  has  been  here;  and  yet  these  names 
attest  that  she  has  not  lagged  behind  her 
neighbors  in  the  higher  pursuits. 

Thus  the  nation,  in  spite  of  its  local  dis- 
cords and  failures,  and  of  the  disillusionment 
as  to  the  speedy  regeneration  of  society 
which  has  spread  over  Europe  and  America 
in  the  last  twenty  years,  has  become  really 
united.  In  Rome,  monuments  to  Cavour  and 
Garibaldi  have  already  been  raised,  and  those 


THIRTY  YEARS  OF  ITALIAN  PROGRESS    229 

to  Victor  Emmanuel  and  Mazzini  are  well  ad- 
vanced. A  statue  to  Giordano  Bruno  rises 
on  the  very  spot  where  he  was  burned  by  the 
Jesuits  three  hundred  years  ago.  "  The  only 
tradition  we  have  had  since  1870,"  said  to 
me  a  person  who  could  speak  with  the  high- 
est authority,  "is  toleration.  The  King  is  at 
the  Quirinal,  the  Pope  at  the  Vatican ;  the 
Minister  of  War  is  a  Jew ;  members  of  each 
church  may  worship  undisturbed  in  Rome." 
Nothing  can  illustrate  better  than  this  tolera- 
tion the  spirit  of  the  new  Italy.  And  her  new 
King — a  man  of  sound  education,  firm  will, 
clear  judgment,  and  high  sense  of  duty  — 
must  be  an  important  factor  in  her  future 
progress.  Judged  by  the  difficulties  she  has 
overcome,  the  transformation  of  Italy  has 
been  relatively  greater  than  that  of  any  other 
modern  nation.  On  this  fact  her  well-wishers 
base  their  hopes. 


LUIGI  CHIALA 


LUIGI  CHIALA1 

SENATOR  LUIGI  CHIALA  died  in  Rome  on 
April  27,  1904,  a  little  more  than  seventy 
years  old.  He  occupied  a  unique  place  among 
Italian  historical  writers;  indeed,  no  other 
country  in  this  generation  has  produced  his 
counterpart.  He  wrote  no  formal  history,  but 
he  edited  the  letters  of  the  chief  makers  of 
modern  Italian  history  in  such  wise  that  his 
works  are  indispensable,  an  integral  part  of 
the  great  chronicle  of  the  Risorgimento.  As 
long  as  the  story  of  Italian  independence  is 
remembered,  Chiala's  commentaries  on  Cavour 
and  La  Marmora  and  their  contemporaries 
are  certain  to  be  read.  He  was  born  at  Ivrea 
in  the  Val  d'Aosta  on  January  29,  1834 ; 
studied  at  the  University  of  Turin ;  volun- 
teered in  the  disastrous  campaign  of  1849 ; 
and  then  devoted  himself  to  journalism.  His 
ability  soon  attracted  the  notice  of  Cavour, 
and  among  his  earliest  works  was  "  Une  Page 
d'Histoire  du  Gouvernement  Representatif 

i  The  Nation,  June  2,  1904 ;  vol.  78,  no.  2031. 


234  LUIGI  CHIALA 

en  Piemont,"  a  revelation  of  the  steps 
which  led  up  to  the  famous  coalition  of  Ca- 
vour  and  Rattazzi  in  1852.  This  treatise  was 
so  evidently  written  by  some  one  on  the  in- 
side that  many  readers  persisted  in  attribut- 
ing it  to  Cavour.  The  coalition,  or  conmibio, 
between  the  rival  leaders  had  been  brought 
about  by  their  common  friend,  Michelangelo 
Castelli,  one  of  those  most  efficient  men  who 
hold  a  relatively  inconspicuous  place  in  the 
public  eye,  but  are  the  intimates  to  whom 
rulers  and  ministers  turn  for  frank  counsel. 
With  him  Chiala  early  formed  a  friendship 
which  lasted  till  Castelli's  death  in  1875. 
During  the  fifties,  Chiala  at  the  age  of 
twenty  founded  and  edited  the  Rivista  Con- 
temporanea,  a  monthly  magazine  published 
at  Turin,  which  served  as  the  mouthpiece  for 
the  men  of  progress  and  patriotism  who  were 
transforming  little  Piedmont  into  a  modern, 
liberal,  and  strong  state.  When  Cavour 
wished  to  prepare  public  opinion  for  the 
death-grapple  with  Austria,  he  suggested  to 
Chiala  the  main  points  of  another  tract,  "  La 
Maison  de  Savoie  et  la  Maison  d'Autriche." 
The  facile  publicist  volunteered  for  the 
war  of  1859,  serving  in  the  Fourth  Regiment 


LUIGI  CHIALA  235 

of  Grenadiers;  he  saw  the  brief  campaign  of 
1860,  and  remained  in  the  army.  In  1862 
he  founded  Italia  Militare,  the  principal 
military  journal  of  Italy,  which  he  conducted 
for  four  years.  During  the  war  of  1866  he 
was  attached  to  the  General  Staff,  and  subse- 
quently he  was  secretary  of  its  chief,  General 
Govone.  The  alliance  with  Prussia,  entered 
into  doubtingly  by  General  La  Marmora, 
the  then  prime  minister,  and  the  defeat  at 
Custozza,  drew  down  on  La  Marmora  an 
avalanche  of  hostile  criticism.  The  young 
staff  officer  could  not  endure  to  see  the  gen- 
eral, whose  confidence  he  had  long  enjoyed, 
calumniated,  and,  having  requested  to  be 
placed  on  the  reserve  list,  so  as  to  free  his 
pen,  he  wrote  in  quick  succession  "Le  Gene- 
ral La  Marmora  et  1' Alliance  Prussienne" 
and  "  La  Politica  Italiana  e  1'Amministra- 
zione  deUa  Guerra  dal  1861  al  1866."  In 
the  former  he  justified  the  premier's  accept- 
ance of  Bismarck's  overtures;  in  the  latter  he 
set  forth  the  policy  which  Italy  had  pursued 
after  Cavour's  death,  and  defended  the  War 
Office  against  the  charge  of  incompetency 
and  neglect. 

In  1870  he  resumed  active  service  on  the 


236  LUIGI   CHI  ALA 

General  Staff,  with  the  rank  of  captain,  and 
was  appointed  editor  of  the  Rivista  Militare, 
an  army  monthly,  which  he  made  flourish. 
In  addition  to  his  editorial  work,  he  pro- 
duced an  elaborate  monograph  on  the  events 
of  1866,  and  after  La  Marmora's  death  (in 
January,  1878)  he  wrote  a  memorial  which 
had  a  wide  circulation  and  added  12,000  lire 
to  the  fund  for  the  General's  monument.  But 
the  chivalrous  Captain  Chiala  had  already 
fallen  into  official  disgrace  by  printing,  in  a 
commemoration  of  Victor  Emmanuel  II,  one 
of  the  King's  letters  to  Baron  Ricasoli  —  an 
act  which  Chiala's  superiors  in  the  War  De- 
partment construed  as  insubordination.  He 
was  arrested  and  imprisoned  at  Civitavecchia  ; 
but  fortunately  he  had  spent  only  fifty  days 
in  that  cheerless  fortress  when  the  adminis- 
tration changed  hands,  and  Cairoli,  the  new 
prime  minister,  at  once  ordered  his  release. 
Chiala  lost  no  time  in  resigning  from  the 
army  for  good. 

To  this  episode  we  probably  owe  his  mon- 
umental work,  the  six  volumes  of  Cavour's 
Letters,  the  first  volume  of  which,  appearing 
in  1882,  introduced  Captain  Chiala's  name 
to  students  of  modern  European  history  in 


LUIGI   CHIALA  237 

all  parts  of  the  world.  He  found  in  Signor 
Luigi  Roux  of  Turin  an  energetic  publisher, 
•who  made  a  specialty  of  bringing  out  import- 
ant works  on  the  Risorgimento.  Elected 
from  Turin  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  in 
1882,  Captain  Chiala  sat  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Historic  Right  until  1892,  when 
he  was  created  a  Senator  by  King  Humbert. 
His  edition  of  Cavour  consumed  nearly  ten 
years.  It  was  followed  by  Castelli's  "  Letters 
and  Memoirs  " ;  by  three  volumes  of  selections, 
with  elucidation,  from  the  editorial  leaders 
of  Giacomo  Dina,  a  journalist,  who,  for  thirty 
years,  stood  at  the  head  of  the  Italian  Lib- 
eral press ;  by  a  volume  on  the  "  First  Expe- 
dition to  Massaua  "  ;  by  three  volumes  of 
"  Pages  of  Contemporary  History  "  ;  and  by 
"  A  Little  More  Light  on  the  Events  of  1866," 
the  last  work  being  issued  in  1903.  Besides 
these  many  books,  there  are  others  which 
deserve  mention :  "  Confidenze  Politiche  di 
due  Uomini  dabbene"  (that  is,  Massimo 
D' Azeglio  and  Giacinto  Collegno) ;  "  L' Alle- 
anza  di  Crimea ";  and  "La  Politica  Segreta 
di  Napoleone  III  e  di  Cavour  in  Italia  ed 
in  Ungheria."  He  had  still  another  work  in 
preparation  at  the  time  of  his  death. 


238  LUIGI  CHIALA 

This  list  of  dates  and  titles  testifies  to 
Senator  Chiala's  astonishing  industry  ;  but 
mere  industry  is  common,  and  many  a  writer 
who  has  filled  a  shelf  with  twenty-five  vol- 
umes has  been  quickly,  and  deservedly,  for- 
gotten. It  is  Senator  Chiala's  distinction  to 
have  worked  in  a  subject  which,  for  Italians  at 
least,  can  never  lose  interest,  and  to  have  con- 
tributed from  his  own  talents  a  very  unusual 
fair-mindedness  and  an  almost  unrivaled 
skill  in  tracing  intricate  political  transac- 
tions, or  in  piecing  together,  from  imperfect 
clues,  a  diplomatic  negotiation.  His  know- 
ledge of  the  traditions  and  practices  of  Euro- 
pean cabinets  since  1840  was  simply  unlim- 
ited. He  knew  the  opinions  of  the  public 
men  of  Italy,  France,  England,  Germany, 
and  Austria  for  fifty  years;  he  had  their 
memoirs  and  published  correspondence  by 
heart ;  and,  so  far  as  concerned  Piedmont 
and  Italy,  he  knew  the  secret  springs  of  ac- 
tion behind  legislation  and  behind  diplomatic 
intrigues.  He  was  as  familiar  with  the  gossip 
as  with  the  archives.  Taken  into  confidence 
by  the  statesmen  of  two  generations,  he 
never  betrayed  their  secrets  nor  committed 
an  indiscretion.  He  could  be  the  friend  of 


LUIGI  CHIALA  239 

two  rivals  without  slighting  either.  This 
trustiness  explains  why  he  became  so  general 
a  confidant. 

It  was  most  fortunate  that  so  much  of  the 
material  of  the  history  of  the  Risorgimento 
came  to  such  a  man  for  editing.  The  unifica- 
tion of  Italy  was  not  achieved  without  arous- 
ing violent  partisan  animosities.  There  were 
Mazzinians,  who  hated  the  Cavourians  almost 
more  bitterly  than  the  Austrians;  there  were 
intransigent  Democrats,  irreconcilable  Cler- 
icals. Senator  Chiala  treated  them  all  fairly, 
taking  pains  to  give  to  each  his  due  as  a 
helper  towards  national  regeneration.  Instead 
of  partisan  narrowness  and  sectarian  exclus- 
iveness,  he  kept  in  view  the  ideals  which 
embraced  all  parties.  He  accomplished  this 
not  by  an  easy  indifferentism,  nor  by  a  sac- 
rifice of  his  own  opinions,  which  were  clear 
and  firm,  but  by  a  genuine  passion  for  fair- 
ness. And  as  no  other  Italian  of  his  gen- 
eration has  done  more  to  promote  good  will 
among  his  countrymen,  so  no  other  has  sur- 
passed him  in  effectively  defending  the  policy 
of  Italy  against  foreign  accusers.  His  ex- 
position of  the  affairs  of  1866,  for  instance, 
may  well  be  final. 


240  LUIGI  CHIALA 

He  was  a  commentator  rather  than  a  bio- 
grapher or  historian.  Give  him  a  collection  of 
letters  or  a  batch  of  political  articles,  and  he 
would  set  them  in  proper  order,  explain  the 
connection  of  one  with  another,  clear  up 
every  allusion,  cite,  if  need  be,  a  dozen  pass- 
ages mutually  remote  to  complete  the  under- 
standing of  a  line,  and  so  put  the  reader  in 
possession  of  all  the  data  needed  for  forming 
an  opinion.  Thanks  to  this  method,  he  em- 
bedded in  his  books  much  fugitive  material 
that  might  otherwise  have  been  lost.  But 
this  method,  which  serves  so  admirably  his 
purpose,  is  of  course  too  diffuse,  too  discurs- 
ive, for  formal  history.  Nearly  ten  years 
before  his  death  I  urged  him  to  recast  his 
introductions  to  the  six  volumes  of  Cavour's 
"Letters"  in  the  form  of  an  independent 
biography.  They  make  more  than  2000 
pages,  which,  by  condensation  such  as  would 
suit  a  biography,  might  be  reduced  one  half. 
But  he  said  to  me  that  it  was  too  late :  he 
had  neither  time  nor  means  to  undertake 
such  a  work,  although  if  he  had  realized  at 
the  outset  how  voluminous  a  commentary 
the  letters  would  require,  he  should  have 
adopted  a  different  plan. 


LUIGI  CHIALA  241 

To  those  who  knew  him,  the  personality 
of  Senator  Chiala  was  most  sympathetic.  He 
was  tall,  above  six  feet  in  height;  and  in  the 
later  years,  when  my  relations  with  him  be- 
gan, his  hair,  moustache,  and  imperial  were 
white.  He  had  a  soldier's  rather  than  a  schol- 
ar's bearing;  but  in  manner  he  was  very 
gentle,  a  model  of  urbanity.  You  never  came 
to  the  end  of  his  information  in  his  chosen 
field  or  of  his  liberality  in  imparting  it,  and 
a  talk  with  him  was  worth  much  reading  as 
a  proof  of  the  innate  genius  of  the  Italians 
for  diplomacy.  He  was  most  generous  in 
praising  what  he  deemed  excellent,  and  his 
praise  carried  great  weight.  I  well  recall  the 
satisfaction  which  Jessie  White  Mario,  the 
last  important  survivor  of  the  Mazzinian 
inner  circle,  expressed  when  I  told  her  that 
Chiala  had  recommended  to  me  in  high  terms 
her  "  Life  of  Bertani."  Though  he  and  she 
were  leagues  apart  in  politics,  yet  she  knew 
that  he  was  just.  He  lived  frugally,  like  so 
many  of  the  intellectual  elite  in  Italy,  chiefly 
dependent  on  his  writings  for  his  support. 
Italy  may  well  blush  to  reflect  that  although 
hundreds  of  his  contemporaries  enriched 
themselves  at  her  expense,  demanding  in 


242  LUIGI  CHIALA 

return  for  past  patriotism  pensions  and 
offices,  this  modest  veteran  of  her  wars,  this 
sterling  chronicler  of  her  heroic  struggle, 
had  during  his  last  years  a  stipend  of  only 
1100  lire.  It  was  better  so.  No  enemy  could 
insinuate  that  he  wrote  to  liquidate  past 
favors  or  to  encourage  possible  patrons.  He 
worked  conscientiously  without  scanting,  and 
without  rest.  In  his  books  as  in  his  life,  he 
personified  the  galantuomo  —  the  chivalrous, 
honest,  fair-minded  gentleman;  the  type  to 
which  the  modern  Italians  do  well  to  look 
up  as  their  ideal. 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 


WE  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  think 
of  Dante  chiefly  as  the  poet  of  "  The  Divine 
Comedy,"  and  of  Shakespeare  chiefly  as  the 
dramatist  of  the  "Plays,"  that  we  do  not 
always  remember  that  they  are  also  supreme 
among  modern  lyric  poets.  There  are  two 
apparent  reasons  for  this  supremacy.  The 
first  concerns  the  Poet  as  Artist.  Dante 
could  never  have  perfected  the  terza  rima 
of  "  The  Divine  Comedy,"  Shakespeare  could 
never  have  elaborated  the  blank  verse  of  the 
"  Plays,"  —  those  Protean  metres,  each  sus- 
ceptible of  endless  variety  in  cadence,  in 
sweep,  in  delicacy  of  modulation,  in  richness 
of  tone, — unless  they  had  both  been,  poten- 
tially at  least,  masters  of  minor  metrical 
forms.  The  greater  includes  the  less. 

The  second  reason  concerns  the  Poet  as 
Man.  Of  all  poetry,  the  lyric  is  the  most 

i  Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1902. 


246  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

personal.  Through  it  the  poet  utters,  with- 
out feigning  or  restraint,  his  subjective  emo- 
tions. But  the  value  of  an  emotion,  for  the 
purpose  of  poetry,  depends  on  the  calibre  of 
the  individual  who  experiences  it.  In  music 
or  painting  it  may  be  otherwise,  but  great 
poetry  inevitably  presupposes  greatness  of 
character  in  the  poet.  He  may  have  many 
flaws,  —  sins,  even,  and  startling  limitations ; 
he  certainly  will  not  let  himself  be  measured 
easily  by  conventional  standards;  but  his 
greatness  is  essential,  the  one  fixed  fact  in 
literature.  Accordingly,  there  is  no  luck  in 
the  surpassing  excellence  of  the  lyrical  poems 
of  Dante  and  Shakespeare,  nor  of  the  lyrics 
of  Milton  and  Goethe,  —  the  greatest  char- 
acters after  those  Two  that  have  expressed 
themselves  through  poetry  in  modern  times. 
Let  us  glance  first  at  Dante  the  Man. 

Fate  gave  him  genius;  life  brought  ex- 
perience ;  and  he,  by  self -correction,  perfected 
both.  Commentators,  in  their  effort  to  recon- 
struct the  poet  from  his  poetry,  have  almost 
made  us  forget  that  he  was  a  man  at  all : 
rather  was  he,  if  we  could  believe  them,  a 
marvelously  intricate  mechanism  for  turning 
out  literary  masterpieces  according  to  rules 


DANTE  AS   LYRIC   POET  247 

which  these  commentators  have  deduced 
from  his  works.  Now,  little  as  we  know 
about  Dante's  external  life,  we  do  know  this 
beyond  dispute,  —  he  was  no  literary  form- 
ula. 

Historically,  he  came  at  the  climax  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  —  that  wonderful  cen- 
tury, only  to  be  matched  in  importance  by 
the  fifteenth  and  the  nineteenth.  It  was  the 
great  Catholic  century.  It  witnessed  the 
Papacy  at  its  zenith  under  Innocent  III, 
the  formulation  of  Catholic  theology  by 
Thomas  Aquinas,  the  rise  of  the  great 
orders,  —  the  Dominican  to  safeguard  the 
faithful  by  persecuting  heretics,  the  Francis- 
can to  lead  all  men  to  Christ  by  following 
his  example.  It  boasted  its  mystics  and  its 
logicians;  it  built  cathedrals;  it  set  forth  on 
eight  crusades ;  it  beheld  the  establishing 
of  popular  government  in  Italian  cities,  the 
bourgeoning  of  popular  literatures,  the  as- 
tonishing expansion  of  the  great  universities. 
Above  all,  it  saw  the  death-struggle  between 
the  Holy  Roman  Emperors  and  the  Popes 
—  the  world  their  stake  —  which  resulted 
in  the  destruction  of  both  Church  and  State 
as  the  joint  arbiters  of  Christendom. 


248  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

Into  all  these  immense  problems  of  creed 
and  of  government,  into  the  speculations 
of  the  philosophers,  into  the  antagonisms  of 
popes  and  emperors,  Dante  plunged  with 
might  and  main.  He  mastered  not  merely 
the  theory  of  the  medieval  world  religion 
and  world  politics,  but  threw  himself  into 
the  civic  life  of  his  native  Florence,  where 
factions  raged,  and  where  to  discharge  a 
citizen's  duties  meant  to  hazard  property  and 
life  on  the  caprice  of  a  fickle  people. 

Coming  of  a  well-to-do  family,  he  enjoyed 
whatever  schooling  Florence  then  gave  her 
youth,  and  he  early,  I  conceive,  outstripped 
his  masters.  Like  most  Italian  lads,  he 
wrote  verses ;  unlike  most,  he  quickly  proved 
himself  a  poet,  for  when  he  was  eighteen 
his  sonnet,  "  A  tiascun'  alma  presa,"  won 
him  a  reputation  among  the  chief  poets  of 
Florence. 

He  fell  in  love  with  a  damsel  whom,  after 
the  fashion  of  his  time,  he  never  aspired  to 
marry,  being  content  to  worship  her  at  a  dis- 
tance, from  his  ninth  year  to  his  twenty- 
fifth,  when  she  died.  The  commentators 
would  persuade  us  that  throughout  his 
adolescence  and  young  manhood  this  passion 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  249 

shut  Dante  out  from  all  other  thoughts, 
keeping  him  in  a  state  almost  hysterical — 
now  ecstatically  oblivious  to  everything  ex- 
cept the  recollection  that  Beatrice  had  salut- 
ed him  last  week ;  now  plunged  in  gloom ; 
now  fainting  or  seeing  visions  ;  forever  sigh- 
ing and  weeping;  and  more  than  once  stark 
mad.  In  his  "little  book,"  "The  New  Life," 
Dante  himself  supplies  the  outlines  for  this 
portrait;  but  not  to  perceive  that  he  there 
writes  as  an  artist,  and  not  as  a  systematic 
chronicler,  is  to  miss  the  key  to  "  The  New 
Life"  and  to  him.  Unquestionably,  that 
passion  for  Beatrice  was  the  chief  experience 
of  his  youth  ;  and,  on  looking  back,  he  omit- 
ted, like  the  great  artist  that  he  was,  all  that 
he  had  done  or  thought  outside  of  the  orbit 
of  Beatrice  during  those  years,  and  by  this 
omission  he  created  the  impression  that 
there  was  nothing  more. 

So  we  must  distinguish  between  the  ideal 
world,  in  which  Dante  placed  his  passion  for 
Beatrice,  and  the  actual  world,  in  which, 
during  those  very  years,  he  was  really  busy 
with  many  other  things.  Specifically  what 
things,  we  cannot  say  in  detail.  We  know, 
however,  that  he  was  mixing  with  the  best 


250  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

intellects  of  his  time,  studying,  meditating ; 
eagerly  taking  part  in  the  affairs  of  Florence, 
even  enlisting  in  her  militia  and  going  forth 
to  battle  for  her  independence  :  in  a  word, 
playing  from  the  outset  the  part  of  a  man 
hungry  for  life,  impetuous,  stern,  of  mani- 
fold capacities,  and  as  far  removed  as  pos- 
sible from  any  abstraction  or  formula.  Let 
us  not  think  of  him  as  the  central  figure  in 
a  Pre-Raphaelite  picture,  —  a  soulful,  esthetic 
youth,  condemned  to  gaze  yearningly  at  sad- 
eyed,  large- jointed,  wry-necked  ladies,  whose 
spirits  and  complexions  seem  sodden  in 
opium.  Pre-Raphaelitism  had  its  charms,  but 
it  could  no  more  interpret  Dante  than  Pope 
could  Homer. 

After  Beatrice  died,  almost  every  certi- 
fied glimpse  we  get  of  Dante,  for  ten  years, 
shows  us  a  man  seizing  hold  on  active  life 
with  ever  increasing  energy.  He  takes  part 
in  the  government  of  Florence  ;  he  goes  on 
embassies ;  he  is  one  of  the  city  priors,  and  a 
recognized  leader  in  one  of  the  great  political 
parties.  He  marries,  and  has  several  children ; 
presumably,  he  has  also  some  bread-giving 
occupation.  Then,  in  January,  1302,  while 
he  is  absent  from  Florence,  his  enemies, 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  261 

having  got  the  upper  hand,  banish  him  on 
a  charge  of  barratry  and  falsifying,  and  ten 
•weeks  later  they  condemn  him  to  be  burned 
alive.  Thenceforward,  until  his  death  in  1321, 
he  leads  an  exile's  life  :  at  first  cooperating 
in  attempts  to  capture  Florence,  then  chafing 
because  one  possible  liberator  after  another 
fails  to  come  to  her  aid.  Amid  these  per- 
turbations, and  in  spite  of  wanderings  which 
took  him  to  almost  every  part  of  Italy,  and 
perhaps  across  the  Alps,  he  writes  "  The 
Divine  Comedy"  and  "The  Banquet,"  and 
makes  himself  master  of  all  the  knowledge 
of  his  time.  And  to  his  learning  he  adds  an 
intensity  of  observation  and  a  breadth  of  re- 
flection which  had  been  united  in  no  earlier 
man  of  genius. 

I  venture  to  recall  almost  at  random  these 
points  in  Dante's  career,  because  I  believe  it 
to  be  much  more  essential  to  know  the  tre- 
mendous energy  of  the  man,  and  to  see  how 
in  his  character  and  genius  he  held  a  whole 
epoch  in  solution,  than  to  be  learned  in  his 
commentators.  Only  in  this  way  shall  we  rid 
ourselves  of  the  common  notion  that  a  great 
poet  cannot  be  a  man  of  action,  and  we  shall 
understand  Dante's  lyrics  better  by  perceiv- 


252  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

ing  that  they  are  authentic  fragments  of  a 
colossal  personality. 

To  be  able  to  certify  that  a  given  poem 
was  written  on  a  given  day  in  a  given  year, 
or  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  or  what  all  its 
allusions  refer  to,  is  often  gratifying;  but 
the  matter  of  first  importance  is,  how  much 
of  these  poems  is  alive  to-day  ?  how  much  of 
the  eternal  do  they  hold  ?  what  message  do 
they  bring  to  your  heart  and  to  mine  ? 

The  approach  to  all  the  masterpieces  of 
literature  has  become  so  clogged  by  the  pa- 
tient labors  of  the  critics  that  one  might 
waste  a  lifetime  climbing  over  or  tunneling 
the  Cordilleras  they  have  raised  before  reach- 
ing the  rich  kingdoms  where  Homer  or  Dante 
or  Shakespeare  reigns.  We  might  almost 
conclude  that  to  be  a  scholar  now  is  to  read, 
not  the  originals,  but  the  reviews  of  critiques 
of  commentaries  on  the  originals ;  and  yet 
the  best  advice  is :  "  Seek  the  original —  read 
it  —  ponder  it — enjoy  it — absorb  it  —  find 
out  what  it  means  to  you."  What  it  meant 
to  the  poet  himself  or  to  his  contemporaries 
we  shall  never  wholly  know;  for  we  can 
never  reconstruct  Dante's  mind  or  Shake- 
speare's, or  the  age  in  which  each  lived. 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  253 

Many  of  the  allusions,  much  of  the  spirit  of 
that  age,  and  the  scope  of  the  master's  gen- 
ius, we  can  understand;  but  still  much  re- 
mains, and,  unless  evidence  now  unknown  be 
discovered,  will  forever  remain,  conjectural. 
In  the  domain  of  conjecture  criticism  shifts 
its  position  from  time  to  time,  as  an  army 
besieges  an  impregnable  fortress,  attacking 
now  on  one  side  and  now  on  another,  even 
making  a  complete  circuit,  yet  never  taking 
it. 

A  beautiful  Greek  statue  is  dug  up:  while 
archeologists  are  disputing  whether  it  re- 
presents god,  demigod,  or  hero,  and  who 
carved  it,  and  where  the  marble  was  quar- 
ried, shall  their  uncertainty  prevent  us  from 
delighting  in  its  beauty  ?  And  although  it 
can  never  be  established  to  whom  Shake- 
speare addressed  his  sonnets,  or  just  how  far 
"  The  New  Life  "  mingles  fact  with  allegory, 
have  they  no  meaning  for  us  ?  Does  it  really 
signify  whether  Shakespeare  had  Pembroke 
or  Southampton  in  mind  when  he  uttered  his 
passion  in  such  sonnets  as  "When,  in  dis- 
grace with  fortune  and  men's  eyes,"  or 
"  Not  marble  nor  the  gilded  monuments,"  or 
"  That  time  of  year  thou  mayest  in  me  be- 


254  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

hold,"  or  "  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet 
silent  thought"?  Must  we  have  solved  the 
enigma  of  Beatrice  in  order  to  thrill  as  a 
lover  thrills  at  the  beauty  of  "  Tanto  gentile 
e  tanto  onestapare"? 

Let  us  emphasize  this,  because  erudition 
threatens  to  usurp  the  function  of  taste  in 
dealing  with  literature,  and,  indeed,  with  all 
works  of  art.  Erudition  continually  thrusts 
upon  us  irrelevances  whose  only  excuse  is 
that  they  are  facts.  Philology  sits  in  judg- 
ment on  poetry.  And  since  the  cardinal 
facts  about  Dante  or  Shakespeare  were  inven- 
toried long  ago,  erudition  offers  theories, 
conjectures,  plausible  guesses,  buttressed  by 
many  citations,  instead  of  facts. 

ii 

Dante's  Canzoniere,  or  book  of  lyrical 
poems,  contains  eighty-six  pieces  usually  held 
to  be  genuine,  eight  more  called  "doubtful," 
and  some  fifty  surely  "  apocryphal."  I  pro- 
pose to  consider  only  the  genuine,  — counting 
less  than  twenty-eight  hundred  lines  in  all,  — 
among  which  are  fifty  sonnets  and  twenty  can- 
zoni;  taking  their  authorship  for  granted,  and 
making  such  comments  on  them  as  would 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  256 

still  be  pertinent  even  if  Dante  were  not 
their  author.  In  short,  it  is  their  substance 
and  style — questions  of  pure  literature 
rather  than  of  erudition  —  with  which  I  wish 
to  deal. 

The  first  difficulty  which  confronts  the 
reader  of  Dante  is  allegory.  Not  less  in  the 
Poems  than  in  "The  Divine  Comedy"  you 
soon  find  yourself  entangled  in  a  network  of 
meanings  and  cross-meanings.  Just  as  your 
mind  grasps  a  thought,  this  suddenly  dis- 
solves in  to  another,  and  this  again  is  metamor- 
phosed. It  is  as  if,  when  you  gaze  into  the 
translucent  blue  of  noon,  you  could  see,  first, 
the  constellations  of  the  stars,  and,  after  a 
little,  beyond  them,  and  lovelier  still,  angelic 
hosts,  such  as  the  old  painters  put  in  the 
heaven  of  their  pictures.  Dante  intended  this. 
There  are,  he  said,  four  meanings  possible  in 
the  highest  poetry,  —  the  literal,  the  allegor- 
ical or  mystical,  the  moral,  and,  finally,  the 
anagogical.  For  our  present  purpose  we  will 
not  lose  ourselves  in  the  maze  of  symbolism : 
we  will  take  the  poems  as  they  stand,  and 
see  what  they  mean  to-day. 

For  commentaries,  turn  to  the  excellent 
works  of  Witte  and  Fraticelli,  those  scholars 


256  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

to  whom  every  subsequent  reader  of  Dante 
gladly  acknowledges  his  indebtedness,  and 
to  Giosue  Carducci,  who,  at  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  at  once  the  most 
eminent  poet  in  Europe  and  one  of  the  fore- 
most critics.  In  Carducci's  monograph,  Delle 
Rime  di  Dante,,1  there  is  a  full  discussion, 
based  on  the  then  latest  information,  of  the 
sources,  composition,  date,  probable  mean- 
ing, and  style  of  most  of  the  poems  in  the 
Canzoniere.  Carducci  discriminates  so  nicely 
that  he  thinks  he  can  set  down  the  order  in 
which  the  lyrics  were  written.  He  assigns 
the  first  poem  of  "  The  New  Life,"  inspired 
by  Guido  Guinizelli  and  the  popular  poets  of 
the  third  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
to  1283  and  the  next  few  years.  Then  Dante, 
feeling  his  own  genius,  enters  his  second  pe- 
riod, that  of  the  "sweet  new  style"  (il  dolce 
stil  nuovo),  which  lasted  till  Beatrice's  death. 
From  1292  to  1298  Carducci  discerns  an- 
other period,  which  he  subdivides  into  three 
parts,  according  as  "natural,"  "  allegorical," 
or  "gnomic"  tendencies  manifest  themselves. 
Finally,  Dante's  banishment  in  1302  opened 

1  Giosue  Carducci,  Studi   Letterari,    vol.   viii.   Bologna, 
1893. 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  257 

another  period,  in  which  the  agonizing  nov- 
elty of  exile  rekindled  the  poet  in  him,  while 
years  and  experience  matured  the  sage  and 
the  statesman. 

Let  us  admit  at  once  that  Dante's  lyric 
poetry  has  the  raw  material  from  which  such 
a  classification  can  be  made ;  but  let  us  be 
politely  skeptical  as  to  the  probability  that 
such  minute  dissection  is  right.  To  suppose 
that  Dante,  or  any  other  true  poet,  produced 
his  works  after  this  orderly,  chessboard  fash- 
ion —  now  all  black,  again  all  red,  one  month 
joy,  the  next  month  gloom  —  would  be  to 
make  that  most  mysterious  of  all  creations, 
a  poet's  soul,  as  humdrum  as  a  railway  time- 
table. 

Before  we  survey  the  contents  of  Dante's 
lyrics,  let  us  examine  for  a  moment  his  work 
as  an  artist  in  metre.  He  did  not  invent  the 
forms  in  which  he  moulded  his  poems,  but 
he  so  stamped  his  originality  on  each  of  them 
that  the  sonnet,  the  ballata,  and,  above  all, 
the  canzone,  became  through  his  genius  new 
metrical  instruments,  capable  of  producing 
effects  hitherto  undreamt  of.  It  was  as  if 
two  strings  had  been  added  to  a  primitive 
violin. 


258  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

While  he  ennobled  these  verse-forms,  he 
showed  how  the  Italian  language  could  serve 
the  highest  purposes  of  poetry.  There  is  a 
striking  contrast  between  the  metrical  de- 
velopment of  English  and  of  Italian.  English 
is  rough  rather  than  musical  in  sound ;  it  has 
few  perfect  rhymes ;  its  words,  except  in  a 
few  cases,  refuse  to  be  contracted  or  cur- 
tailed. How  to  get  from  such  an  instrument 
the  delicate  modulations  that  beautify  the 
lyrics  of  Shakespeare,  Shelley,  and  Tenny- 
son, —  that  was  the  technical  problem  for 
the  masters  of  English  verse. 

Italian  stands  as  the  reverse  of  all  this.  It 
is  plastic  almost  to  the  point  of  fluidity;  it  is 
dangerously  friable.  If  a  final  syllable  harms 
the  rhythm,  it  can  be  elided ;  if  the  first  syl- 
lable interferes,  it  can  often  be  suppressed ; 
if  a  foot  or  half-foot  is  needed,  a  suffix,  of 
the  required  length,  can  be  added ;  even  the 
central  syllable  of  a  word  is  not  always  safe 
from  condensation.  Of  rhymes  there  is  no 
limit,  and  they  are  exact  rhymes.  The  very 
genius  of  the  language  is  musical,  its  prose 
having  a  dactylic  flow  almost  as  marked  as 
the  formal  metres  of  its  poetry.  For  impro- 
visation, for  sweet  ditties  and  dulcet  ser- 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  269 

enades,  for  folk-songs  with  their  simplicity 
and  their  easy,  haunting  refrains,  such  a 
language  could  not  be  surpassed  ;  but  could 
it  be  the  mouthpiece  for  great  passion? 
Would  tragedy  not  find  it  too  soft,  satire 
too  flimsy?  Could  it  be  trumpet,  violin,  or 
organ,  as  well  as  guitar? 

Dante  achieved  this  wonder !  He  wrote 
some  sonnets  which  not  even  Petrarch,  com- 
ing after  him  and  profiting  by  his  example, 
has  rivaled.  He  raised  the  canzone  to  be  the 
peer  of  the  English  ode.  Welcoming  difficul- 
ties, because  he  saw  that  to  overcome  them 
he  must  have  control  over  every  phrase, 
word,  and  syllable,  wherewith  to  clothe  his 
thought,  he  experimented  with  novel  kinds 
of  metres  and  rhymes.  The  intricacies  of 
structure  which  in  English  prevent  the  son- 
net from  ever  losing,  except  with  a  few  mas- 
ters, an  artificial  air,  checked  in  Italian  that 
tendency  to  improvisation  which  Dante  re- 
sisted. Accordingly,  he  packed  his  canzoni 
with  thought,  firm  of  texture  and  polished 
until  every  syllable  fitted  irremovably  into  its 
place.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  carried  conden- 
sation across  the  border  of  obscurity :  imag- 
ine the  terseness  of  Tacitus  rendered  still 


260  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

more  difficult  by  the  omissions  and  ellipses 
permitted  in  poetry,  and  you  will  get  an  idea 
of  his  most  compressed  passages.  His  treat- 
ise on  "  The  Vulgar  Tongue  "  shows  how 
completely  he  had  mastered  the  theory  of 
the  science  of  verse,  especially  in  the  Romance 
languages ;  his  poems  prove  that  he  could 
embody  his  knowledge  in  his  technique. 

Dante  gives  no  comfort  to  the  idle  singers 
of  an  empty  day,  who  pretend  that  technical 
knowledge  and  the  file  need  not  be  included 
in  a  poet's  outfit.  "  The  highest  conceptions 
cannot  exist,"  he  says,  "  except  where  there 
is  knowledge  and  genius."  *  "Never  without 
sharpness  of  genius,  nor  without  assiduity  in 
art,  nor  without  practice  of  knowledge,"  he 
says  again,  can  one  succeed  in  writing  a  can- 
zone ;  "  and  hereby  is  confessed  the  folly  of 
those  who,  without  art  and  without  know- 
ledge, relying  solely  on  their  genius,  set 
themselves  to  sing  in  the  highest  fashion  of 
the  highest  things."  2  In  a  famous  passage 
of  "The  New  Life"  he  remarks:  "It 
would  be  a  great  disgrace  to  him  who  should 
rhyme  anything  under  the  garb  of  a  figure 
or  of  rhetorical  coloring,  if  afterward,  being 

1  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  ii,  1.  a  Ibid,  ii,  5. 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  261 

asked,  he  should  not  be  able  to  denude  his 
words  of  their  garb,  in  such  wise  that  they 
should  have  a  true  meaning.  And  my  first 
friend  [Guido  Cavalcanti]  and  I  are  well  ac- 
quainted with  those  who  rhyme  thus  fool- 
ishly." 1  And  so  are  we,  who  have  heard  the 
follies  of  French  Symbolists  and  of  their 
foreign  mimics  gravely  proclaimed  as  a  new 
triumph  in  poetry. 

In  Dante  we  find  that  rarest  union,  —  in- 
tensity of  imagination  and  clearness  of  intel- 
lect. When  Love  inspired  him,  he  wrote ; 
but  the  fervor  of  that  inspiration  did  not 
prevent  the  working  of  his  critical  faculty, 
by  which  he  tested  its  validity  and  decided 
how  to  clothe  it  in  words.  He  seems  to  have 
held  that  our  thought  lies  beyond  control, 
but  that  its  expression  depends  on  faculties 
which  we  may  direct, — on  knowledge,  taste, 
patience,  and  skill,  which  are  greater  or  less 
according  as  we  voluntarily  cultivate  them. 
"  Speech,"  he  says,  "  is  not  otherwise  an  in- 
strument necessary  to  our  conceptions  than 
is  the  horse  to  the  soldier."  2  A  memorable 
simile. 

1  The  New  Life,  §  25,  Norton's  translation. 

2  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  ii,  1. 


262  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

The  little  singers  of  our  day  and  of  all 
days  shun  knowledge  and  dread  criticism,  and 
well  they  may  ;  for  their  verse-making  is  but 
effervescence.  But  Dante,  seer  and  knower 
in  one,  could  endure  the  most  searching  crit- 
icism—  his  own  —  without  chilling  his  in- 
spiration. The  analyses  which  he  makes  of 
each  poem  in  "The  New  Life,"  and  the  ex- 
haustive interpretation  of  his  canzoni  in 
"  The  Banquet,"  show  critical  talents  of  the 
highest  order.  Indeed,  we  almost  resent  his 
cold-blooded  dissection  of  those  throbbing 
sonnets  to  Beatrice,  until  we  reflect  that 
through  his  ability  to  criticise,  not  less  than 
to  create,  Dante  became  the  chief  moulder 
of  Italian  poetry.  He  rescued  it  from  the 
doom  of  improvisation.  The  Provengal,  lack- 
ing such  a  savior,  had  degenerated  quickly, 
never  to  revive. 

Thus  we  can  hardly  overestimate  Dante's 
importance  as  a  lyric  craftsman.  As  such,  he 
greatly  influenced  his  immediate  successors, 
and  he  has  dominated  the  best  Italian  poets 
ever  since.  Shakespeare  certainly  ranks  sec- 
ond to  no  other  lyric  poet,  and  yet  his  direct 
influence  on  English  metrical  development  is 
scarcely  discernible, — his  lyrics,  like  his  plays, 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  263 

have  had  no  progeny ;  while  Dante,  both  in 
his  lyrics  and  in  his  epic,  stands  literally  as 
the  Father  of  Italian  Song. 

Such  was  Dante's  influence  on  the  struc- 
ture of  Italian  poetry  :  not  less  elemental  was 
his  effect  on  its  substance.  His  treatment  of 
Love,  the  imperial  theme  of  lyric  poetry, 
illustrates  this. 

Chivalry  as  an  ideal  partook  somewhat  of 
the  feudalism  and  somewhat  of  the  religion 
of  the  society  out  of  which  it  sprang.  The 
devotion  of  the  Knight  to  his  Lady  went  by 
the  name  of  love,  but  ought  rather  to  be 
called  worship ;  for  between  them  there  ex- 
isted, in  theory  at  least,  no  personal  relations. 
In  fact,  however,  that  faultless  worship  of 
the  Knight  for  his  Lady,  untainted  by  thought 
of  sex,  had  few  votaries.  As  ancient  as  Adam 
and  Lilith  was  the  love  the  Troubadours 
sang.  "  Galeotto  was  the  book,  and  he  who 
wrote  it,"  —  in  those  words  Francesca  da 
Rimini  revealed  to  Dante  the  influence  which 
had  brought  her  and  her  lover  to  Hell.  That 
sexless  attachment  of  Knight  and  Lady,  like 
its  counterpart,  sacerdotal  celibacy,  might 
have  prospered  save  for  one  thing :  in  the  one 
case  Chivalry,  in  the  other  the  Church,  left 


264  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

human  nature  out  of  the  reckoning ;  and 
flax  and  flame,  then  and  to-day  and  always, 
must  burn  when  they  meet. 

The  sudden  exalting  of  woman,  commonly 
regarded  as  the  chief  product  of  Chivalry, 
had  in  essence  a  deeper  origin.  It  marked  a 
change  in  the  ideals  of  sex  that  had  slowly 
overspread  Christendom ;  nay,  they  had 
not  only  overspread  Christendom,  they  had 
mounted  to  heaven.  The  deification  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  typified  the  gradual  recognition, 
unconscious  rather  than  reasoned  out,  that  at 
the  very  Heart  of  the  Universe  there  must 
abide  those  qualities  which  make  woman 
woman.  The  Christian  God,  as  defined  by 
the  theologians,  whether  he  were  worshiped 
as  One,  or  as  Three  in  One,  was  a  masculine 
God.  The  Power  personified  in  the  Father, 
the  Wisdom  in  the  Son,  the  Love  in  the 
Holy  Ghost,  were  still  the  attributes  of  man, 
and  not  of  mankind,  since  they  did  not  in- 
clude attributes  which  are  the  peculiar  en- 
dowment of  woman.  Motherhood,  the  most 
intimate  and  beautiful  of  human  relations, 
had  no  recognition  in  that  scheme  of  Deity. 
But  instinct  deeper  than  creed  supplied  the 
lack  in  the  creed  which  theology  had  drawn 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  265 

up.  In  the  apotheosis  of  Mary  medieval 
Christendom  made  its  most  precious  contri- 
bution to  human  ideals. 

But  while  ideal  womanhood  had  already 
before  Dante's  birth  been  deified,  chivalric 
love  had  sunk  in  practice  to  the  carnal  level. 
The  song  might  still  be  innocent,  but  the 
courtly  singer  and  his  mistress,  the  Knight 
and  his  Lady,  were  not.  And  the  poetry  it- 
self, naively  charming  in  its  youth,  had  be- 
come conventional.  The  old  phrases  and 
much  of  the  old  prettiness  remained,  and 
the  metrical  skill  had  increased;  but  instead 
of  many  themes  there  was  only  ingenious  re- 
petition of  one  theme, —  conceits  refined  and 
overrefined,  and,  worst  of  all,  the  evidence 
that  neither  the  poet  nor  his  readers  believed 
in  the  pure  devotion  which  he  extolled. 

Then  Dante  came,  and  into  this  faded  ideal 
he  poured  that  which  first  suffused  it  with 
new  life,  and  then  transfigured  and  sanctified 
it,  until  he  had  created  a  new  ideal.  Dante's 
passion  for  Beatrice  was  genuine ;  accord- 
ingly, his  lyric  poems  to  her  vibrate  with  sin- 
cerity. Fortunately,  he  was  spiritual  as  well 
as  sincere ;  and  it  is  of  great  moment  that 
he,  the  earliest  master  of  modern  poetry, 


266  DANTE   AS  LYRIC   POET 

should  thus  spiritualize  the  poetry  of  personal 
passion.  Physical  beauty  remains  of  the  earth, 
unless  it  be  the  medium  through  which  the 
soul  shines  forth.  Expression  transcends  form. 
Into  his  portrait  of  Beatrice  he  painted  those 
attributes  which  never  grow  old,  which  could 
not  be  exhausted  though  every  woman  in  the 
world  possessed  them ;  and  the  mere  descrip- 
tion of  them  must  have  more  and  more  mean- 
ing according  as  men  see  with  the  eyes  of 
the  spirit.  To  have  converted  to  such  high 
uses  the  poetry  of  chivalry  from  being  either 
a  metrical  plaything  or  an  erotic  ornament 
attests  the  genuineness  of  his  passion.  But 
he  did  more  than  this :  he  revived  and 
amplified  the  mystical  conception  of  Platonic 
love. 

In  his  passion  for  Beatrice  —  as  in  all  his 
other  vital  experiences  —  he  passed  by  a  pro- 
cess of  growth  from  the  personal  and  con- 
crete to  the  impersonal  and  universal.  At 
first  it  was  the  real  Beatrice,  the  beautiful 
and  lovely  daughter  of  Folco  Portinari,  on 
whom  all  his  passion  centred;  then,  after 
she  died,  it  was  her  memory  that  he  wor- 
shiped ;  until  gradually,  from  a  person  she 
became  a  personification,  —  the  symbol  in 


DANTE   AS  LYRIC   POET  267 

Paradise  of  Heavenly  Wisdom.  What  is  this 
but  Platonic  Love,  as  described  so  mightily 
by  Plato  in  "  The  Symposium,"  and  so  com- 
monly misunderstood? 

in 

And  now  for  the  poems  themselves.  We 
find  in  the  earliest  of  them  a  mystical  view 
of  love,  which  tends  more  and  more  towards 
the  Platonic  ideal,  and  which,  after  the  death 
of  Beatrice,  when  Dante  writes  avowedly  in 
allegory,  visibly  merges  in  that  ideal.  As  a 
youth,  he  had  before  him  the  beautiful  can- 
zone of  Guido  Guinizelli,  "  Al  cor  gentil 
ripara  sempre  Amore"  in  which  mystical 
love  is  described  with  much  philosophical 
finesse  and  much  poetical  charm.  Among  all 
the  poems  of  that  century,  not  by  Dante, 
this  is,  I  think,  the  most  delightful ;  and  if 
it  had  here  and  there  a  little  more  distinction 
of  phrase,  it  would  rank  with  the  best  mod- 
ern lyrics.  In  it  we  have  the  two  cardinal 
points  laid  down,  that  Love's  dwelling-place 
is  the  gentle  heart,  —  "  Love  and  the  gentle 
heart  are  one  same  thing,"  is  Dante's  own 
expression,  —  and  that  Love,  since  it  came 
from  God,  wears  an  angel's  face. 


268  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

Only  a  barbarian  would  undertake  to  de- 
grade into  cold  prose  the  loveliness  of  the 
love-poems  in  "  The  New  Life "  :  no  other 
medium  than  verse  can  convey  the  music  of 
the  words,  the  heightened  imagery,  the  emo- 
tion which  pulses  through  the  metre.  We 
may,  however,  indicate  some  of  their  charac- 
teristics. 

First,  the  freshness  of  them  !  They  are  the 
earliest  blossoms  of  the  Spring  of  Modern 
Love ;  and  they  glisten  with  the  newness  and 
the  tenderness  of  Spring.  For  this  vernal 
rapture  we  go  back,  in  English  poetry,  to 
the  Elizabethans;  but  Sidney  and  Spenser 
drew  from  Italian  streams  which  flowed  from 
Dante's  fountain. 

Then,  their  blending  of  naivete  with  know- 
ledge !  This  strange  power,  Love,  overcomes 
Dante :  it  fills  all  his  life,  and  transfigures 
the  universe  before  his  eyes ;  he  watches 
its  influence  spread,  as  he  might  watch  with 
increasing  wonder  the  mystery  of  dawn  grow 
into  the  pageant  of  sunrise.  But  while  his 
soul  is  thus  enthralled  by  the  ecstasy  of  love, 
his  reason  seeks  to  know  the  origin  and  na- 
ture of  his  new  master  :  hence  that  interweav- 
ing of  passion  and  philosophy,  in  which 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  269 

Dante  came  at  last  to  transcend  all  other 
poets. 

This  blending  reaches  perfection  in  his 
descriptions  of  Beatrice,  which  rise  higher 
and  higher  in  spirituality,  without  letting  us 
doubt  that  they  apply  to  an  actual  woman. 
He  reveals  her  to  us  by  the  effect  she  pro- 
duces on  those  who  beheld  her,  rather  than 
by  a  definite  portrayal  of  her  countenance. 
Her  eyes  and  her  smiling  mouth  (the  two 
features  through  which  the  soul  becomes  vis- 
ible), and  the  sweet  dignity  of  her  bearing  — 
her  expression,  and  not  her  physical  mould  — 
these  are  the  outward  signs  of  Beatrice  which 
Dante  describes.  Accordingly,  his  portrait  of 
her  is  at  once  actual  and  ideal :  every  lover 
who  looks  upon  it  believes  that  it  was  drawn 
from  a  living  Beatrice,  but  that  it  cannot 
possibly  be  true  of  any  other  than  his  own 
beloved. 

And  then,  how  many  chords  are  touched 
by  the  poems  in  "  The  New  Life "  !  Dante 
sings  not  only  the  perfection  of  Beatrice,  but 
also  his  own  perturbations.  Like  all  lovers, 
he  pendulates  between  boldness  and  shyness. 
For  days  or  weeks  his  one  desire  is  to  see 
her,  yet  when  they  meet  his  courage  deserts 


270  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

him,  he  trembles  at  her  salutation.  He  goes 
home  to  cry  out  on  the  tyrant  Love  who 
thus  torments  him ;  and  even  while  he  cries 
out,  he  longs  for  a  repetition  of  the  torment. 
Like  other  lovers,  he  resorts  to  subterfuge, 
and  pays  such  marked  attention  to  another 
damsel  that  Beatrice  herself  is  deceived  into 
thinking  that  he  has  forsaken  her.  When  he 
hears  of  this,  he  sends  her  a  poem  (Ballata  i) 
in  which  he  explains  his  conduct,  and  pro- 
tests that  his  devotion  has  never  wavered. 
The  time  comes  when  his  passion  is  no  longer 
a  secret :  his  friends  talk  to  him  about  it ; 
Beatrice's  companions  question  him  as  to  its 
goal,  and  he  pours  forth  the  canzone,  "  La- 
dies, who  have  intelligence  of  love,"  a  pas- 
sionate ode  in  praise  of  Beatrice,  whom  the 
angels  desire  to  be  their  comrade  in  heaven. 
Not  long  afterward  the  father  of  Beatrice 
dies,  and  for  the  first  time  the  realization 
that  Beatrice  herself  may  die  crashes  like 
a  thunderbolt  through  Dante's  soul.  For  him, 
as  for  every  true  lover  in  youth,  nothing  else 
can  equal  the  dismay  and  agony  which  that 
possibility  causes.  Life  and  love  are  identical 
to  the  youth  who  loves ;  how  can  he  think 
of  life  without  the  beloved  ?  Only  in  the  all- 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  271 

enveloping  immensity  of  Death  can  the  agony 
which  Death  inflicts  be  quenched.  This  sub- 
limation of  grief  is  rarely  felt  in  later  years, 
for  experience  teaches  us  that  life  can  be 
lived,  bereft  of  the  beloved,  or  even  love- 
lessly,  and  that  Duty,  Friendship,  or  Phil- 
anthropy may  take  Love's  place  at  the  helm. 
This  canzone,  embodying  Dante's  first  pre- 
monition of  Death,  lifts  his  love-story  to 
a  higher  plane  of  significance  by  endowing  it 
with  that  tragic  quality  which  intrudes  sooner 
or  later  upon  us  all.  Dante  had,  in  truth,  al- 
ready written  two  poems  (Sonnet  3,  Ballata 
n),  when  one  of  Beatrice's  friends  died ;  but 
they  are  graceful  and  sweet,  the  utterance 
of  sentiment,  while  this  is  tragic.  And  even 
after  the  death  of  Beatrice  herself  he  speaks 
as  one  sorrowing,  but  not  amazed,  at  Death. 
In  the  third  canzone  he  pictures  Beatrice  in 
heaven,  God  having  called  her  to  him  be- 
cause he  saw  that  this  troubled  mortal  life 
was  not  worthy  of  such  a  gentle  thing.  But 
if  we  except  the  lamentation  addressed  to  pil- 
grims who  are  passing  through  Florence,  sor- 
row rather  than  anguish  henceforth  prevails. 
He  suffers  keenly,  but  he  continues  to  live ; 
he  strives  for  resignation,  or  at  least  for  dis- 


272  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

traction,  and  is  stirred  by  moral  incentives  of 
whose  force  he  had  not  dreamed  till  now. 

The  conclusion  of  "  The  New  Life  "  con- 
tains further  the  record  of  Dante's  experi- 
ence with  the  Compassionate  Lady,  who 
grieved  at  his  grief  and  tried  to  cheer  him, 
and  so  far  succeeded  that  he  found  himself 
in  love  with  her.  A  very  human  touch  is  this, 
bearing  witness  to  the  close  resemblance  be- 
tween Sympathy  and  Love.  But  the  memory 
of  Beatrice  comes  back  so  vividly  to  Dante 
that  he  realizes  that  Sympathy,  however 
sweet,  is  not  Love,  and  cannot  replace  the 
passion  which  Beatrice  inspired ;  and  so  he 
concludes  "  The  New  Life"  with  that  famous 
resolve  to  say  of  her  "  what  was  never  said 
of  any  woman." 

Brief  as  is  this  analysis  of  the  themes 
dealt  with  in  "  The  New  Life,"  it  will  show, 
I  trust,  how  wide  their  range  is.  Alike  in 
the  history  of  the  poetry  of  the  modern  world 
and  in  the  history  of  the  ideals  of  love,  they 
are  of  immense  importance :  intrinsically,  also, 
many  of  them  have  never  been  surpassed, 
some  of  them  have  never  been  equaled,  by 
subsequent  singers  of  spiritualized  love,  of 
beauty,  and  of  womanly  perfection. 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  273 

This  cycle  of  poems  in  "  The  New  Life," 
although  it  fills  less  than  a  quarter  of  the 
Canzoniere,  is  better  known  because  of  its 
sequence,  its  completeness,  and  the  delight- 
ful prose  setting,  than  all  the  rest,  although 
among  these  are  many  magnificent  poems, 
the  fruits  of  Dante's  lyric  genius  at  its  ma- 
turity. There  are  perhaps  a  dozen  which  seem 
to  belong,  either  in  theme  or  in  treatment, 
with  "  The  New  Life  "  ;  then  come  the  three 
canzoni  of  "  The  Banquet,"  and  finally  some 
forty  other  pieces  which  have  not  been  classi- 
fied. 

We  may  mention  first  that  strange  group 
of  poems1  in  which  Dante  inveighs  against 
a  lady  who  will  not  listen  to  his  suit.  They 
have  shocked  some  of  his  critics  and  puzzled 
all,  and  many  specious  allegories  have  been 
invented  to  explain  them.  To  analyze  them 
we  have  not  space  here;  but  in  the  briefest 
review  of  Dante's  lyrics  they  should  not  be 
passed  by.  For  just  as  the  poems  to  Beatrice 
reveal  him  as  the  youthful  lover,  so  these 

1  These  are  Canzoni  ix,  x,  and  xi,  Sestina  i,  and  Sonnets 
22,  32,  37,  and  43.  Canzone  vm  refers  to  the  Lady  of 
the  Casentino.  I  follow  throughout  Fraticelli's  numbering 
(Canzoniere,  Barbera,  1873),  which  is  the  best  in  print,  al- 
though by  no  means  satisfactory. 


274  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

show  him  to  us  loving  with  the  full  vehe- 
mence of  his  prime,  and  not  at  all  resigned 
to  worship  silently  and  aloof  the  object  of 
his  passion.  Who  the  lady  was  who  has  been 
called  Pietra,  quite  without  authority,  and 
whether  she  was  also  the  Lady  of  the  Casen- 
tino,  will  probably  never  be  known,  but  the 
poems  add  an  entire  province  to  our  estimate 
of  Dante's  personality. 

May  we  not  be  content  to  admit  that  much 
of  the  Canzoniere  has  never  been  satisfac- 
torily "  explained,"  nor  can  be,  unless  fur- 
ther evidence  turn  up,  but  that,  nevertheless, 
nine  tenths  of  it  has  intrinsic,  vital  meaning 
to-day  ?  Most  of  the  controversies  rage  round 
insoluble  matters.  I  care  not  whether  the 
stony-hearted  lady  lived  in  Padua,  or  the 
Lady  of  the  Casentino  had  (as  alleged)  a 
goitre ;  what  would  it  profit  us  to  know  the 
names  of  the  grandmothers  of  the  sculptor 
of  the  Venus  of  Milo,  or  of  the  musicians 
who  played  the  shawms  when  the  90th  Psalm 
was  first  sung  ?  The  vital  facts  we  have :  the 
passion  of  the  "  Pietra  "  canzoni  and  of  the 
canzone  written  in  the  Casentino  is  plain, 
and  these  poems  all  testify  that  no  bardling 
wrote  them. 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  275 

Nor  do  I  observe  that  psychology  has  yet 
found  the  key  to  literary  criticism.  Like 
pedantry,  —  or  scholarship,  if  the  old  name 
seems  discourteous,  —  it  furnishes  facts  which 
do  not  touch  the  inner  meaning  of  any  art 
product.  Suppose  that  we  could,  by  some 
miracle  of  hindsight,  measure,  after  the 
psychologist's  fashion,  the  emotions  of  Shake- 
speare and  Dante,  and  that  we  learned  that 
Shakespeare's  pulse  rose  three  beats  when  he 
entertained  an  angry  thought,  or  that  Dante's 
temperature  fell  three  twenty-ninths  of  a  de- 
gree when  he  thought  vehemently  of  love : 
what  would  it  prove  ?  Absolutely  nothing  as 
to  the  value  of  a  scene  from  Timon  or  a 
sonnet  from  "  The  New  Life."  Equally  vain 
are  the  efforts,  so  far  as  I  have  seen  them,  of 
those  critics  who  have  imagined  that  by  such 
devices  they  could  fathom  the  mysteries  of 
the  creative  imagination.  Psychology  hath 
its  bubbles,  as  religion  and  science  have,  and 
these  are  of  them.  Thirty  years  ago  other 
critics  believed  just  as  confidently  that  they 
could  explain  genius  by  heredity. 

Returning  to  our  survey,  we  cannot  but  be 
amazed,  as  we  get  to  the  heart  of  one  poem 
after  another,  by  Dante's  inexhaustibility 


276  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

of  thought,  phrase,  and  metre.  Judged 
merely  by  their  number,  the  twenty  canzoni 
are  among  the  most  remarkable  evidences  of 
poetic  genius;  but  quality  is  the  final  test, 
and  in  this  they  do  not  fail.  Not  one  is  me- 
diocre ;  fully  three  quarters  are  superior.  If 
Coleridge  had  produced  fifteen  odes  equal  to 
"  Dejection,"  we  might  have  had  in  English 
a  poetical  achievement  to  set  beside  Dante's 
canzoni.  I  do  not  imply,  of  course,  that  Cole- 
ridge's genius  resembles  Dante's  in  kind. 
But  without  frequent  citations  from  the  orig- 
inal, it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  speak 
of  some  of  the  obvious  characteristics  of  such 
poetry.  Lyrics  like  the  ballate — ten  in  num- 
ber—  evade  even  description.  Their  beauty 
depends  on  the  perfect  marriage  of  word  and 
music,  and  is  no  more  to  be  described  except 
by  itself  than  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  songs. 

The  first  two  canzoni  of  "  The  Banquet " 
record  the  stages  by  which  Dante  passed 
from  the  love  of  Beatrice  to  the  love  of 
philosophy ;  the  third  expounds  the  nature  of 
true  nobility.  The  remaining  forty-five  lyrics 
may  be  divided  into  moral,  personal,  and 
patriotic,  according  to  their  themes. 

Concerning  Dante's  didactic  poems  in  gen- 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  277 

eral,  it  may  be  said  that,  even  to  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  who  has  personally,  and  vicariously 
through  Puritan  ancestors,  listened  for  cen- 
turies to  moral  preaching,  they  still  have 
that  insistence  of  truth  which  was  old  before 
Dante's  birth,  and  is  born  again  whenever 
the  youngest  child  perceives  its  meaning.  In 
their  intensity,  they  are  among  the  few  mod- 
ern utterances  through  which  the  Old  Testa- 
ment resonance  echoes ;  but  Dante  reasons, 
whereas  the  Jewish  prophet  proclaims  down- 
right, "Thus  saith  the  Lord!"  and  awaits  no 
reply.  In  these  works,  as  in  nearly  all  that 
he  wrote,  Dante  was  a  pioneer.  He  tells  us 
that  before  his  time  there  were  only  love- 
poems  in  Italian,  but  that  he  chose  to  write 
of  Philosophy  under  the  guise  of  Love. 
When  we  reflect  that  the  Italians,  from  never 
having  read  the  Bible  freely  in  their  mother 
tongue,  have  been  cut  off  from  the  traditional 
source  of  moral  education  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries, we  shall  hardly  overestimate  what  it 
meant  to  them  that  their  greatest  poet  was 
also  their  greatest  moralist. 

Among  other  personal  poems  there  are 
three  sonnets  (40,  41,  43)  apparently  written 
to  Cino  da  Pistoja,  for  whom  Dante  feels 


278  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

such  friendship  that  he  frankly  urges  him  to 
mend  his  ways ;  but  above  all,  there  is  the 
sonnet  to  Cavalcanti,  "  Guido,  I  would  that 
Lapo,  thou  and  I,"  —  the  delightfulest  ex- 
pression of  Love  and  Comradeship,  with  its 
strange  modernness  of  sentiment,  and  its 
language  as  simple  and  musical  as  that  which 
captivates  us  in  Heine's  songs. 

Finally,  there  are  two  patriotic  canzoni. 
In  one  of  them  (xx)  Dante  addresses  Florence, 
—  "  My  country,  worthy  of  triumphal  fame, 
mother  of  great-souled  sons,"  —  conjuring 
her  by  her  spotless  past,  when  the  citizens 
"  chose  virtues  to  be  the  pillars  of  the  State," 
to  extirpate  the  impious  children  who  degrade 
her :  "  so  that  downtrodden  faith  may  rise 
again  with  justice,  sword  in  hand."  From 
the  first  line  to  the  last,  we  hear  the  out- 
pouring of  a  true  patriot,  one  who  loves  his 
country  with  a  son's  devotion,  and  knows 
that  he  best  proves  his  love  by  repudiating 
the  evil  policy  into  which  she  has  been  led. 
Are  there  not  lands  to-day  which  might 
well  heed  the  alarum  of  this  envoy  ?  "  Thou 
shalt  go  forth,  Canzone,  boldly  and  proudly, 
since  Love  leadeth  thee,  into  my  country,  for 
which  I  mourn  and  weep  j  and  thou  shalt  find 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET  279 

some  good  men  whose  lantern  gives  no  light ; 
for  they  are  submerged,  and  their  virtue  is 
in  the  mire.  Shout  unto  them :  Arise,  arise ! 
It  is  for  you  I  call !  " 

Thus  Dante  pleads  for  the  regeneration  of 
his  beloved  Florence.  In  the  other  canzone 
(xix)  he  rises  at  once  to  the  summit  of  patri- 
otism. He  is  an  exile,  outcast,  yearning  for 
his  ungrateful  city,  when  three  ladies  come 
together  about  his  heart,  because  Love  sits 
within.  They  too  have  been  cast  out  from 
their  rightful  place  in  the  affairs  of  men; 
they  have  been  scorned,  insulted,  despised. 
Who  are  they?  Righteousness,  Generosity, 
Temperance :  think  what  it  means  that  a 
whole  people  should  banish  them,  and  that 
their  refuge  should  be  the  heart  of  one  just 
man,  himself  in  banishment !  Love  listens  to 
the  story  of  their  wrongs,  and  bids  them  not 
despair,  for  he  and  they  are  of  one  family, 
founded  on  the  Eternal  Rock.  "  And  I  who 
hear,"  says  Dante,  "  such  lofty  exiles  con- 
sole them  and  lament,  hold  as  an  honor  the 
exile  decreed  to  me:  and  if  man's  judgment 
or  the  force  of  destiny  will  that  the  world 
turn  its  white  flowers  to  dark,  to  fall  among 
the  good  still  merits  praise."  Here,  then,  is 


280  DANTE  AS  LYRIC   POET 

the  last  behest  of  patriotism:  you  shall  not 
condone  your  country's  sins,  but  you  shall 
keep  your  heart  so  pure  that  it  may  be  the 
abode  of  Justice  and  Righteousness  when  all 
other  men  reject  them;  and  above  any  com- 
promise with  the  wicked,  you  shall  prefer  to 
fall  among  the  good. 

We  may  well  close  our  survey  with  this 
magnificent  poem,  in  which  Dante  has  set 
Patriotism  immutably  on  the  heights,  where 
Love  and  Righteousness  dwell. 

Thus  is  the  circle  of  the  Canzoniere  com- 
plete. Love  in  many  phases,  —  expectant, 
adoring,  timid,  angry,  ecstatic;  Friendship; 
Scorn;  Wisdom;  Integrity;  Honor;  Beauty; 
Patriotism ;  Death,  —  Dante  has  touched  one 
after  another  these  everlasting  chords  of  hu- 
man interest,  and  he  has  so  touched  them  as 
to  produce  lyric  poetry  of  the  very  highest 
quality.  If  we  measure  the  range  of  Shake- 
speare's Sonnets  and  Songs,  the  only  other 
work  which  equals  the  Canzoniere  in  lyric 
genius,  we  shall  find  that  Shakespeare  has 
little  or  nothing  to  say  on  several  of  these 
themes,  however  royally  abundant  is  his 
utterance  of  others.  In  their  capacity  for 
passion  the  two  poets  were  equal ;  but  Dante 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  281 

had  a  theory  of  life,  the  centre  of  which  was 
Love,  by  which  he  came  to  test  whatever  ex- 
perience, reflection,  or  imagination  brought 
him.  Shakespeare,  so  far  as  I  discern,  had 
no  such  unifying  principle.  The  Niagara  of 
life  swept  before  him,  and  he  sat  upon  the 
bank  and  strove  to  paint  it  as  he  saw  it,  — 
incessant,  vast,  awful,  beautiful,  —  infinite 
in  its  momentary  variations,  yet  apparently 
one  and  permanent:  so  he  painted  it,  not 
recking  to  put  on  to  his  canvas  any  ques- 
tions of  Whence,  or  Why,  or  Whither.  Ac- 
cordingly, myriads  of  men  have  had  their 
characters  formed  by  Dante ;  I  doubt  whether 
many  have  been  consciously  formed  by  Shake- 
speare. I  am  not  trying  to  compare  these 
Incomparable  Two,  but  merely  to  indicate 
their  most  striking  differences.  A  comparison 
of  Dante  and  Shakespeare,  for  the  purpose  of 
ranking  them,  would  be  as  idle  as  a  compari- 
son of  the  Alps  and  the  Atlantic  Ocean ;  the 
genius  of  each  sufficed  to  symbolize  life  in 
its  entirety. 

What  abatement  must  we  make  in  our 
estimate  of  the  Canzoniere  ?  Something,  no 
doubt,  must  be  deducted  on  the  score  of  age, 
although  Dante's  language  has  fewer  anti- 


282  DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET 

quated  words  than  Shakespeare's.  More  for- 
midable is  his  use  of  allegory ;  for  even  when 
we  have  agreed  to  take  what  we  can  of  the 
natural  meanings,  and  to  let  the  gnomic  and 
anagogical  go,  we  should  prefer  to  know  all 
the  possible  answers  to  the  riddle,  and  may 
feel  a  little  aggrieved  that  we  never  can. 
That  Dante  sometimes  exercises  his  marvel- 
ous gift  for  logical  disputation  beyond  the 
proper  limits  of  lyrical  poetry,  in  which  the 
main  business  is  not  to  syllogize,  can  hardly 
be  denied.  So,  too,  we  may  justly  object  to 
an  occasional  display  of  learning,  or  to  a 
passage  obscured  by  too  great  condensation. 
But  these  blemishes  occur  very  rarely,  and 
not  one  of  his  poems  is  spoiled  by  them.  To 
complain  that  even  he  could  not  lift  some  of 
the  intricate  metres  with  which  he  experi- 
mented out  of  the  region  of  artificiality  con- 
demns those  verse-forms,  and  not  him. 

After  making  whatever  deduction  we  must, 
an  inestimable  treasure  remains.  In  the  Can- 
zoniere,  the  highest  lyrical  genius  embodies 
itself  in  the  noblest  themes.  Appraising 
Dante's  lyrics  absolutely,  for  their  contents 
and  art,  they  belong  at  the  head  of  modern 
poetry;  judging  them  historically,  to  deter- 


DANTE  AS  LYRIC  POET  283 

mine  their  place  in  the  evolution  of  European 
poesy,  they  have,  like  all  of  Dante's  writings, 
unique  structural  importance.  By  his  con- 
science for  form  and  respect  for  unity  of 
theme  and  tone  he  belongs  with  the  ancients, 
while  by  his  treatment  of  the  passionate  and 
spiritual  he  seems  strangely  modern.  He  is 
the  spokesman  not  of  his  own  time  and  place 
merely,  but  of  an  entire  age,  of  a  complete 
civilization,  which  after  six  centuries  of 
growth  culminates  before  his  eyes.  And  so 
his  works  embody  that  civilization,  and  trans- 
mit to  us  and  to  later  ages  as  much  of  it  as 
has  perennial  life. 

But  it  is  his  genius,  —  the  throbbings 
of  his  heart,  the  intensity  and  penetration  of 
his  mind,  the  medieval  ideals  exalted  by  his 
spirit,  the  terrible  earnestness  of  his  moral 
nature,  —  it  is  Dante,  the  man,  the  person, 
the  poet,  and  not  his  epoch,  that  lives  to-day ; 
it  is  Dante,  the  passionate  lover,  that  sings 
this  matchless  song  to  Beatrice  —  "  Tanto 
gentile  e  tanto  onesta pare" 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE — LIBERAL ' 

IF  Primo  Levi,  "  L'ltalico,"  whose  trenchant 
articles  are  highly  prized  by  intelligent  Ital- 
ians of  all  parties,  had  sought  a  favorable 
moment  for  issuing  his  recollections  of  the 
late  Cardinal  Hohenlohe,  he  could  have  found 
none  better  than  the  present.  For  just  now, 
when  Pius  X,  under  Jesuit  guidance,  has 
launched  his  Syllabus  against  Modernists  and 
Ultramontanism  is  everywhere  recrudescent, 
the  portrait  which  Sign  or  Levi  paints  of  a 
great  prince  of  the  Catholic  Church  who 
dared  to  be  a  Liberal  is  all  the  more  strik- 
ing by  contrast. 

Americans  know  so  little  about  the  real 
condition  of  Clerical  cliques  at  Rome  that 
they  imagine  that  there  is  only  one  party, 
which  acts  always  in  perfect  harmony.  The 
real  Papal  Rome  is,  however,  the  battle- 
ground of  unceasing  conflict  between  one 
party  in  the  Church  and  another — Francis- 
cans strive  with  Dominicans,  Jesuits  with 

1  Boston  Evening  Transcript,  November  2,  1907. 


288      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 

Liberals,  seculars  with  regulars,  and  there  is 
as  great  a  difference  between  the  members  of 
the  extremes  as  between,  let  us  say,  standpat- 
ter Republicans  and  Paterson  Anarchists.  In 
Rome  this  is  well  understood.  Any  one  who 
has  access  to  Black  circles  hears  very  much 
such  talk  of  partisan  hopes  and  personal 
ambitions  as  he  would  hear  in  political  circles 
at  Washington.  Archbishop  X  is  to  be  made 
a  cardinal  because  a  certain  powerful  Papal 
family  insists  upon  his  promotion ;  Bishop  Y, 
on  the  contrary,  has  lost  his  hope  of  prefer- 
ment because  he  resented  Jesuit  interference 
in  his  diocese ;  Z  was  slated  for  Nuncio  to 
Tierra  del  Puego,  but  it  was  thought  expedi- 
ent to  propitiate  the  Spanish  prelature  by 
sending  Monsignor  Luis  y  Juan  instead;  and 
so  on  through  all  the  changes  of  persons  and 
combinations. 

Primo  Levi's  recollections 1  give  us  an 
authentic  glimpse  behind  the  scenes.  Cardi- 
nal Gustavo  Adolfo  Hohenlohe,  a  brother  of 
the  German  Chancellor  whose  memoirs  caused 
such  a  fluttering  of  German  imperial  dove- 
cotes, chose  the  Church  as  a  career,  not  be- 

1  "11  Cardinale  d' Hohenlohe  nella  Vita  Italiana."  Rome  : 
Sociela  Tipografico-Editrice  Nazionale.  1907. 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL      289 

cause  he  was  specially  religious,  but  because 
it  offered  to  him,  thanks  to  his  great  family 
connections,  a  brilliant  future.  And  he  had 
a  young  man's  enthusiasm  for  Pius  IX,  then 
recently  made  pope  and  the  willing  leader, 
as  Italians  fondly  supposed,  of  the  national 
cause.  Pius  soon  backslid,  but  the  young 
prelate  held  fast  to  his  Liberalism  and  his 
love  of  Italy  without  surrendering  his  affec- 
tion for  the  bland  pope.  He  was  rapidly 
promoted,  and  at  a  comparatively  early  age 
he  became  cardinal,  with  the  Church  of  Santa 
Maria  Maggiore  as  his  seat.  Luckily,  the  red 
hat  reached  him  when  it  did,  because  he 
could  hardly  have  expected  it  from  Leo  XIII, 
who  was  personally  and  politically  unsympa- 
thetic to  him.  But  being  Cardinal  and  Prince 
Hohenlohe,  and  the  most  distinguished  repre- 
sentative of  the  German  Catholics,  he  could 
not  be  ignored  by  Leo,  who  had  adopted  the 
policy  of  appearing  Liberal  in  non-essen- 
tials, while  he  maintained  the  old  Pian  atti- 
tude —  TiOTi  possumus  —  towards  the  King- 
dom of  Italy,  the  French  Republic,  and  the 
German  ecclesiastical  agreement. 

It  was  early  in  the  nineties  when  the  Car- 
dinal's acquaintance  with  Signer  Levi  began, 


290        CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 

and  quickly  ripened  into  the  warmest  and 
most  trustful  friendship.  Primo  Levi,  now 
the  foremost  publicist  in  Italy,  editor  of  the 
Tribuna  of  Rome,  co-editor  of  the  Nuova 
Antologia,  confidant  and  mouthpiece  of  the 
administration,  and  a  distinguished  official  in 
the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  was  then 
under  forty,  but  he  had  already  made  his 
mark  in  journalism,  and  had  been  taken  by 
Crispi  as  confidential  secretary.  During  the 
rest  of  Hohenlohe's  life  Levi  served  as  inter- 
mediary between  him  and  the  Government. 
Even  earlier  than  this  the  Cardinal's  courtesy 
toward  the  officials  of  the  Quirinal  had  not 
been  relished  by  the  Pope  ;  "for  among  Leo's 
other  contradictions,"  says  Levi,  "was  this  — 
he  wished  to  obtain  favors  from  the  Govern- 
ment, but  to  scold  those  who  in  order  to 
serve  him  must  have  and  have  had  cordial 
relations  with  the  Ministers  of  the  King  of 
Italy." 

Through  Cardinal  Rampolla  Leo  under- 
took to  reprove  Cardinal  Hohenlohe.  It  was 
during  the  crisis  when  the  Blacks  were  try- 
ing to  inflame  Catholics  outside  of  Italy  by 
declaring  that  unless  the  intolerable  "im- 
prisonment "  of  His  Holiness  ceased  he  would 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL      291 

be  forced  to  depart  from  Rome.  Hohenlohe 
was  not  the  person  to  submit  meekly  to  a 
dressing-down,  even  by  the  Pope,  and  to 
Leo's  reproof  he  returned  the  following  reply, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  important  historical 
documents  of  the  time  :  — 

"At  the  last  audience,"  the  Cardinal 
writes,  "  I  said  to  your  Holiness  that  I  had 
invited  Minister  Boselli,  who  had  agreed  to 
construct  the  great  staircase  at  San  Gregorio 
and  had  promised  other  favors.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  your  Holiness  was  pleased.  All  the 
greater  was  my  surprise  on  receiving  that 
letter  from  Cardinal  Rampolla. 

"  To-day  we  can  no  longer  isolate  our- 
selves in  Chinese  fashion  from  the  person- 
ages of  the  Italian  Government.  God  has  so 
ordained  that  the  Church  can  never  again 
get  back  her  temporal  power.  The  salvation 
of  souls  requires  that  we  resign  ourselves  to 
this  fact,  that  we  keep  quietly  within  the 
ecclesiastical  sphere  and  perform  charity  by 
giving  of  our  substance  and  by  teaching  the 
faithful. 

"  There  is  talk  of  quitting  Rome.  Now 
his  Excellency  Crispi  told  me  the  other  day 
to  inform  your  Holiness  that,  if  you  wish 


292      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 

to  go,  he  will  not  oppose  it  and  will  have 
you  escorted  with  all  honors,  but  that  your 
Holiness  will  never  return  to  Rome ;  that 
if  your  departure  should  stir  up  a  war  — 
for  example,  on  the  part  of  France  —  re- 
ligion would  lose  immensely  thereby ;  that 
Italy  will  not  make  war  unless  France  at- 
tacks her  ;  that  in  case  of  war  the  Italian 
Government  guarantees  the  safety  of  the 
Pope  at  Rome,  but  that  the  Pope  must 
cherish  no  illusions :  let  him  once  depart, 
he  shall  never  return  to  Rome,  and  the  Holy 
See  will  suffer  a  terrible  shock. 

"  Furthermore,  France  is  giving  Russia  in 
the  Orient  every  facility  for  the  triumph  of 
the  schism,  in  order  to  secure  a  political  alli- 
ance with  Russia.  So  that  there  would  seem 
to  be  very  little  to  hope  for  in  that  quarter. 

"  We  cardinals  have  the  strictest  right  to 
speak  the  truth  to  the  Pope;  therefore,  listen. 
In  the  time  of  Pius  VI  the  five  million  crowns 
stored  by  Sixtus  V  in  the  Castle  of  St.  An- 
gelo  were  lost,  and  nevertheless,  up  to  1839, 
every  new  cardinal  had  to  swear  to  preserve 
those  five  millions  which  no  longer  existed. 
It  was  only  Cardinal  Acton  who  in  1839  pro- 
tested against  that  oath,  and  Pope  Gregory 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL      293 

found  Acton's  reasons  just.  Likewise,  to-day, 
also,  cardinals  are  made  to  swear  things  which 
they  cannot  perform.  Therefore  it  is  time  to 
find  a  remedy." 

The  letter  is  dated  July  24,  1889.  No 
wonder  that  Leo  XIII,  with  his  masterful 
nature,  did  not  relish  a  cardinal  who  was  so 
fearless  and  so  frank ;  for  popes,  like  other 
sovereigns,  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  flattery. 
But  Leo  and  the  Curia  laid  to  heart  Crispi's 
message,  which  I  have  italicized,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  there  has  been  no  serious 
talk  of  the  Pope's  abandoning  Rome.  Cardi- 
nal Hohenlohe's  warning  sank  deep.  The  last 
point  in  his  letter,  however,  has  not  yet  been 
heeded.  Every  cardinal,  and  each  new  pope, 
is  made  to  swear  that  he  will  preserve  intact 
the  inheritance  of  the  Holy  See,  and  this 
inheritance  includes,  theoretically,  the  Tem- 
poral Power,  which  was  lost  nearly  forty  years 
ago,  and  is  as  as  much  of  a  phantom  as  the 
five  million  scudi  of  Sixtus  V  or  the  legacy 
of  Countess  Matilda. 

Cardinal  Hohenlohe's  other  suggestion, 
that  the  Holy  See  abandon  political  in- 
trigues and  devote  itself  to  works  of  charity 
and  the  saving  of  souls,  has  also  been  dis- 


294      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL 

regarded.  In  1889  he  was  one  of  the  so- 
called  Liberal  Party  among  the  high  clergy, 
who  hoped,  by  accepting  the  God-ordained 
loss  of  temporal  power,  that  they  might 
organize  a  religious  revival  in  the  Catholic 
Church.  Two  other  cardinals,  Franchi  and 
Schiaffino,  and  the  Papal  Nuncio  at  Vienna, 
Monsignor  Galimberti,  who  upheld  the  Lib- 
eral policy  at  that  time,  all  died,  as  Signor 
Levi  remarks,  "  rather  mysteriously,"  —  a 
euphemism  for  "by  poison,"  according  to 
the  common  belief  of  their  intimates  at 
Rome.  Hohenlohe  himself  believed  that  his 
Clerical  enemies  were  bent  on  getting  rid  of 
him  in  the  same  way.  On  December  5, 1892, 
the  Messaggero  newspaper  announced,  with- 
out the  slightest  reason,  that  he  was  ill, — 
as  if  to  prepare  the  public  for  the  subse- 
quent announcement  of  his  death.  The  news 
was  inspired,  he  wrote  Levi,  from  the  Seg- 
reteria  of  the  Vatican.  That  he  deemed  the 
danger  real  cannot  be  doubted ;  for  shortly 
after,  on  being  called  to  Schloss  Rauden  to 
the  deathbed  of  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Ratibor,  he  turned  to  Levi  to  recommend 
to  him  a  trusty  traveling  companion.  The 
priests  whom  the  Vatican  wished  to  send 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL     295 

with  him  might,  he  thought,  be  too  expert 
in  the  preparation  of  the  acquetta  which 
the  Jesuits  were  supposed  to  use  with  satis- 
factory results  on  their  enemies.  The  situ- 
ation was  sufficiently  dramatic :  Hohenlohe, 
one  of  the  most  eminent  cardinals  of  his 
time,  relied  upon  Signer  Levi,  a  Jew,  and 
the  confidential  aid  of  Crispi,  to  save  him 
from  his  own  colleagues !  The  mere  fact 
speaks  volumes.  How  much  danger  he  actu- 
ally ran  is  not  important;  but  what  is  im- 
portant is  that  a  cardinal,  who  had  spent 
forty  years  in  the  heart  of  the  Papal  ma- 
chine, did  regard  assassination  as  a  probable 
means  of  his  taking-off.  If  a  motive  be 
sought,  it  can  easily  be  suggested.  Leo 
XIII,  already  over  eighty  years  old,  might 
die  at  any  moment,  and  in  the  conclave  to 
choose  his  successor  the  Liberal  Party,  al- 
though numerically  small,  might  still  be 
able  to  hold  the  balance  of  power  and  cause 
the  election  of  a  Liberal. 

Primo  Levi  even  goes  so  far  as  to  suggest 
that  Hohenlohe  himself  might  possibly  have 
been  elected  pope ;  and  this,  not  merely  be- 
cause throughout  the  Catholic  Church  there 
were  many  earnestly  religious  persons,  both 


296      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 

lay  and  clerical,  who,  wearied  or  disgusted 
by  the  politico-worldly  regime  of  the  pre- 
ceding forty  years,  longed  for  a  religious 
revival,  but  because  there  was  the  feeling, 
which  slowly  gains  ground,  that  if  the  Cath- 
olic Church  is  really  universal  as  it  pretends 
to  be,  its  pope  should  sometimes  be  chosen 
from  outside  the  Italian  cardinals.  With 
five  sixths  of  the  Catholics  non-Italians, 
it  is  unlikely  that  they  will  go  on  forever 
contributing  the  great  bulk  of  the  sums 
received  at  the  Vatican,  to  be  used  for  the 
benefit  of  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
Italians,  or  that  they  will  consent  to  see  the 
highest  oflices  in  the  Church,  especially  the 
popeship,  always  bestowed  on  the  small  ring 
of  Italian  theocrats.  But  in  the  nineties, 
the  reactionists  and  politicians  at  the  Vati- 
can knew  very  well  that  if  there  were  even 
a  compromise  with  the  Liberals  and  the 
religious  in  the  Church  their  own  occupa- 
tion would  be  gone.  And  so  it  happened 
that  the  three  Liberal  cardinals,  —  Franchi, 
Schiaffino,  and  Hohenlohe,  —  who  might 
have  exerted  a  deciding  influence  on  the 
next  conclave,  were  removed  "  rather  mys- 
teriously "  long  before  Leo  XIII  died. 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL      297 

As  titular  protector  of  the  Rosminians, 
Cardinal  Hohenlohe  incurred  the  implacable 
hatred  of  the  Jesuits,  who,  since  1848,  have 
never  ceased  to  attack  Rosmini.  And  with 
reason ;  for  Antonio  Rosmini  was  the  one 
great  religious  leader  produced  by  Italy  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  a  saint  in  character, 
a  philosopher  of  profound  and  comprehen- 
sive intellect,  a  churchman  who  wished  the 
Catholic  Church  to  be  divorced  from  politics, 
an  Italian  who  longed  to  see  Italy  free  and 
independent.  In  the  dawn  of  Pius  the  Ninth's 
career  as  a  reformer,  Rosmini  was  welcomed 
by  the  Pope,  who  announced  that  he  should 
create  him  cardinal;  but  before  the  con- 
sistory was  held  the  Jesuits  had  won  Pius 
over,  Rosmini  was  disgraced,  and  in  1855 
he  died,  presumably  of  poison.  The  Ros- 
minian  ideal  of  the  Church  is  so  diametric- 
ally opposed  to  the  Jesuit  ideal  that  the  fol- 
lowers of  Loyola  were  logical  in  assailing  it. 
Although  Pius  IX  had  formally  approved 
Rosmini's  doctrines,  the  Jesuits  denounced 
them  without  respite  and  persuaded  Leo 
XIII  to  approve  their  condemnation  by  the 
Inquisition.  In  1892  the  Vatican  press  is- 
sued an  attack  upon  them  which  the  Osser- 


298      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 

vatore  Romano,  the  official  organ  of  the 
Jesuits,  extolled.  Cardinal  Hohenlohe  there- 
upon wrote  a  satirical  reply  to  the  Osserva- 
tore,  which  he  entrusted  to  Levi  for  publica- 
tion. One  passage  from  it  must  be  quoted, 
as  showing  the  Cardinal's  position :  "  The 
traditions  of  the  Church,"  he  says,  "  have 
been  left  on  one  side ;  the  episcopate  is  mis- 
used by  treating  the  bishops  like  servants ; 
without  any  right  they  [the  Ultramontanes] 
are  trying  to  impose  on  other  nations  polit- 
ical opinions  which  the  majority  of  them 
cannot  approve;  in  short,  they  are  doing 
everything  to  compromise  the  Church.  But 
this  comes  from  a  party ;  because  if  it  came 
really  from  Leo  XIII  the  episcopate  would 
find  itself  in  the  hard  necessity  of  depos- 
ing him  as  the  champion  of  false  doctrines, 
in  opposition  to  his  predecessor  —  quod 
absit." 

In  1894,  Signor  Levi  conferred  with  the 
Cardinal  in  behalf  of  Baron  Blanc,  Italian 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  of  Crispi, 
Prime  Minister,  in  regard  to  the  attitude 
which  the  members  of  the  Triple  Alliance  — 
Italy,  Austria,  and  Germany  —  should  hold 
in  case  a  new  conclave  had  to  be  summoned. 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL      299 

They  agreed  that  as  Germany  was  primarily 
a  Protestant  country  it  would  not  be  becom- 
ing for  her  to  take  the  lead,  and  that  Italy 
must  do  nothing  that  might  be  construed  as 
an  interference  with  the  spiritual  activity  of 
the  Church.  Therefore  it  would  devolve  on 
Austria,  whose  orthodoxy  could  not  be  ques- 
tioned and  whose  sovereign  was  both  "  Cath- 
olic "  and  "  Apostolic,"  to  exercise,  if  neces- 
sary, her  traditional  right  of  veto.  A  secret 
memorial  to  this  effect  was  drawn  up,  and  a 
copy  of  it  was  sent  to  the  Cardinal's  brother, 
Prince  Chlodwig  Hohenlohe,  at  that  time 
Chancellor  of  the  German  Empire. 

Signor  Levi  recalls  two  other  incidents  of 
the  Cardinal's  last  days  which  showed  how 
far  removed  he  was  from  the  unreconstructed 
Clericals.  He  had  an  ardent  admiration  for 
Crispi,  whom  he  regarded  as  a  statesman  of 
great  ability,  the  mainstay  of  Italy  against 
Clerical  reaction  on  the  one  hand  and  against 
revolution  on  the  other.  More  than  once  he 
entertained  Crispi  privately  at  his  palace  at 
Santa  Maria  Maggiore.  At  the  wedding  re- 
ception of  one  of  Crispi's  lieutenants  in  the 
Foreign  Office,  Hohenlohe  took  off  his  crim- 
son beretta  and  put  it  on  Crispi's  head,  with 


300      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  —  LIBERAL 

the  playful  remark,  "  When  I  am  Pope,  you 
shall  be  my  Secretary  of  State."  The  story 
leaked  out,  but  as  the  occasion  was  strictly 
informal,  Leo  seems  to  have  taken  no  official 
notice  of  it. 

A  little  later,  however,  the  Cardinal  at- 
tended a  banquet  given  by  Baron  Blanc, 
then  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  in  his  splen- 
did quarters  in  the  Sciarra  Palace ;  and  dur- 
ing the  course  of  the  dinner  he  caught 
Crispi's  eye,  lifted  his  glass  of  champagne 
and  drank  to  him  in  silence.  The  next  morn- 
ing all  Rome  was  talking  about  the  affair. 
The  Vatican  professed  to  be  horror-struck  at 
the  scandal.  Leo  summoned  Hohenlohe  and 
attempted  to  administer  a  rebuke,  which,  how- 
ever, the  impenitent  Cardinal  did  not  take 
very  submissively.  "He  vindicated  his  lib- 
erty of  action,"  says  Levi,  "  whether  as 
Prince  of  the  Church  or  as  earthly  prince : 
for,  being  a  great  personage  by  birth  and 
by  nature,  he  could  not  evade  certain  social 
obligations,  much  less,  he  said,  since  he  was 
the  brother  of  the  Chancellor  of  Germany, 
which  naturally  placed  him  in  a  special  posi- 
tion, different  from  that  of  the  other  cardi- 
nals, towards  the  Italian  rulers,  who  were 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL      301 

precisely  the  allies  of  Germany."  Leo,  be- 
sides maintaining  the  official  hostility  towards 
Italy  which  he  inherited  from  Pius  IX,  hap- 
pened at  that  time  to  be  coquetting  with 
France,  and  so  the  reference  to  Germany  ir- 
ritated him.  "  The  interview,"  Levi  remarks, 
"  was  not  absolutely  pacific."  Cardinal  Ho- 
henlohe  absented  himself  from  Rome  for 
several  months,  taking  care  to  inform  his 
friends,  and  through  them  the  public,  that 
it  was  not  because  the  Pope  bade  him  to  do 
so.  Leo  was  a  masterful  pontiff,  but  he  knew 
when  he  had  gone  as  far  as  it  was  safe  in 
dealing  with  that  massive  German  nature. 

The  following  summer  the  Cardinal  re- 
joiced at  the  dedication  at  Milan  of  Luca 
Beltrami's  monument  to  Rosmini,  to  which 
festival  he  sent  a  personal  representative,  as 
he  could  not  be  present  himself.  Soon  after- 
ward his  health  began  mysteriously  to  fail. 
Now  he  seemed  better,  now  worse ;  but  as 
his  physician  expressed  no  anxiety  his  friends 
felt  no  alarm.  Suddenly,  on  October  30, 
1896,  he  died.  He  was  in  his  seventy-third 
year.  Primo  Levi  hints  at  poison ;  in  Rome 
that  was  and  is  the  commonly  accepted  ex- 
planation. The  Cardinal's  family,  remember- 


302      CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE— LIBERAL 

ing  that  he  had  twice  before  almost  died  in 
this  way,  and  dreading  that  an  autopsy  might 
confirm  their  suspicions,  and  so  necessitate 
an  attempt,  by  criminal  process,  to  discover 
the  agent  whom  the  Cardinal's  enemies  had 
hired,  preferred  that  he  should  be  buried 
without  an  examination.  When  the  next 
pope  was  elected — in  1903  —  those  enemies 
were  in  the  ascendant. 

Primo  Levi's  brief  memoir  is  important  as 
an  historical  document,  because  it  reveals 
what  was  going  on  at  the  Vatican  between 
the  years  1888  and  1896.  But  it  contains 
also  much  that  is  non-political,  and  gives  us 
a  most  affectionate  and  sympathetic  portrait 
of  the  princely  Cardinal,  the  patron  of  art- 
ists, the  lover  of  music,  the  host  of  Liszt,  the 
grand  seigneur  who  dwelt  simply  in  the  Villa 
d'Este.  Hohenlohe  Italianized  himself  to  a 
degree  that  few  foreigners  have  reached.  On 
the  intellectual  and  esthetic  side  he  looked 
back  to  the  Renaissance ;  but  in  religion, 
while  he  was  sincerely  Catholic  as  to  doc- 
trines, he  was  anti-Papal  (in  the  modern 
sense),  and  he  had  the  innate  sturdy  belief 
of  the  Teutonic  race  that  religion  should  be 
judged  by  its  fruits.  The  Church,  he  held, 


CARDINAL  HOHENLOHE  — LIBERAL        303 

ought  to  uplift  souls  and  purify  conduct,  and 
not  to  pollute  herself  by  pursuing  mundane 
ambitions.  So  Dante  also  urged  six  centuries 
before  him. 


ITALY  IN  1907 


ITALY  IN   1907 1 

ONE  who  has  known  Italy  for  more  than 
thirty  years  can  never  return  there  without 
at  once  inquiring  into  her  condition  and 
comparing  his  latest  with  his  earlier  impres- 
sions. For  United  Italy  is  the  great  European 
experiment  in  which  all  the  world  is  inter- 
ested—  an  experiment  involving  patriotic, 
moral,  racial,  political,  and  religious  consid- 
erations which  have  their  points  of  contact 
with  all  the  world.  From  1860,  when  the 
Italian  Kingdom  sprang  into  being,  its  course 
was  long  precarious,  and  often  so  perilous 
that  one  watched  it  as  men  watched  Blondin 
crossing  Niagara  on  a  tight-rope.  At  frequent 
intervals  observers,  native  and  foreign,  pre- 
dicted her  collapse.  Her  public  men  made 
mistakes,  apparently  irretrievable;  her  ene- 
mies rallied  again  and  again  to  destroy  her ; 
fortune  dealt  her  more  than  one  staggering 
blow;  and  yet  she  survived,  and  to-day  she 
has  a  firmer  position  than  ever  before. 

1  Boston  Evening  Transcript,  April  27,  1907. 


308  ITALY  IN  1907 

The  most  obvious  contrast  between  Italy 
in  1907  and  Italy  even  ten  years  ago  is  the 
present  financial  optimism.  Italy's  credit  is 
good,  her  currency  circulates  at  par,  and 
throughout  the  North  she  enjoys  a  period  of 
rapid  and  sound  commercial  expansion.  The 
United  States  can  scarcely  show  a  city  of 
equal  size  to  match  Milan  for  progressive- 
ness  and  "hustle."  Material  prosperity,  the 
indispensable  corner-stone  on  which  the  moral 
and  intellectual  improvement  of  the  masses 
must  rest,  meets  one  at  every  turn ;  but  this 
condition  does  not  extend  beyond  Tuscany, 
except  that  the  cities  of  Rome  and  Naples 
give  evidence  of  rapid  growth.  Southern 
Italy  and  Sicily,  however,  offer  an  almost 
tragic  contrast ;  and  the  problems  which  con- 
front them  have  very  deep  roots.  So  bound 
up  in  Italy's  Southern  Question  are  histor- 
ical, economic,  social,  and  racial  perplexities, 
that  to  unravel  any  one  of  them  would  mean 
almost  a  social  transformation.  But  distress- 
ing though  the  plight  of  the  Neapolitans  and 
Sicilians  truly  is,  we  must  remember  that  the 
conditions  which  now  excite  horror  or  in- 
dignation have  existed  for  centuries,  and 
that  they  would  not  now  be  discussed  if  the 


ITALY  IN  1907  309 

happier  conditions  of  the  North  and  the  Cen- 
tre, and  a  quickened  public  conscience,  had 
not  forced  the  contrast  into  the  foreground. 
Within  a  few  years,  for  instance,  the  South- 
ern peasants  have  been  emigrating  in  such 
multitudes  that  entire  districts  are  literally 
unmanned,  if  not  depopulated;  yet  these 
peasants  do  not  suffer  worse  than  their 
fathers  and  ancestors  did,  who  struggled 
half-starved  through  life,  or  died  of  famine 
in  the  lean  years,  and  had  no  means  of  escap- 
ing their  doom.  The  emigration  problem 
itself  has  assumed  an  altogether  different 
aspect  for  Italy.  Not  long  ago  emigration 
was  encouraged  as  an  easy  way  of  getting 
rid  of  the  superfluous  or  undesirable  thou- 
sands ;  now  the  wisest  Italians  see  that  emi- 
gration is  bleeding  Italy  of  its  best  rural 
blood,  and  that,  while  temporarily  necessary, 
the  conditions  which  make  it  necessary  must 
be  remedied  if  the  nation  is  to  maintain  its 
vigor. 

Very  striking,  also,  is  the  subsidence  of 
Socialism.  The  number  of  Socialists  has  prob- 
ably not  decreased,  but  the  cause  itself  no 
longer  seems  to  portend  an  immediate  up- 
heaval. The  change  may  be  traced  to  several 


310  ITALY  IN   1907 

reasons,  among  them  being:  the  prosperity 
of  the  North,  which  is  the  hot-bed  of  Social- 
ism ;  the  recognition  by  many  of  the  intellect- 
ual leaders  who  supported  the  Socialist 
programme  that  the  people  are  not  fitted  to 
enter  suddenly  into  Utopia;  the  splitting  of 
the  militant  Socialists  into  three  or  four  sects, 
mutually  antagonistic.  All  these  have  con- 
tributed to  the  dispersal  of  an  apparent 
danger.  The  same  holds  true  of  Republican- 
ism. There  are  a  good  many  Republicans, 
actual  or  theoretical,  but  no  man  of  command- 
ing influence  advocates  the  Republic.  Carducci 
in  1895  expressed  the  general  feeling  when  he 
declared  that  the  Monarchy  was  the  only 
practical  government  for  Italy,  and  that  it 
would  take  several  decades,  if  not  generations, 
before  the  Italians  would  be  ripe  for  a  re- 
public. In  1905,  at  the  national  celebration  of 
Mazzini's  centenary,  Signer  Ernesto  Nathan 
delivered  the  oration,  in  the  presence  of  the 
King,  and  he  said  that  were  Mazzini  still  alive 
he  would  unquestionably  support  the  Mon- 
archy as  the  guarantee  of  Italian  unity  and 
independence.  Such  an  avowal  from  the  de- 
positary of  Mazzini's  papers  and  the  guardian 
of  Mazzini's  memory,  himself  in  other  times 


ITALY  IN  1907  311 

a  distinguished  Republican,  sufficiently  meas- 
ures the  complete  change  that  has  come  to 
pass.  Socialists  and  Republicans  will  go  on 
holding  meetings,  and  their  deputies  in  Par- 
liament will  prod  the  bourgeoisie  majority  to 
concede  many  of  the  reforms  for  which  they 
justly  clamor,  but  only  a  few  fanatics  would 
rejoice  to  see  the  Monarchy  overturned  and 
Italy  plunged  into  civil  war  from  which  she 
might  not  emerge  intact.  Nevertheless,  the 
Party  of  Revolution  recently  scared  the  con- 
servative classes  so  thoroughly  that  all  of 
them,  even  the  Clericals,  rallied  together  for 
mutual  support.  The  scare  had  at  least  the 
beneficial  effect  of  compelling  each  party  to 
fall  back  on  its  fundamental  principles.  The 
intuition  that  in  the  Monarchy  lies  their  salva- 
tion illustrates  the  level-headedness  of  the 
Italians.  Up  to  a  certain  point  they  will  listen 
to  political  Utopians;  but  long  experience 
with  adverse  fortune  during  the  Old  Regime 
has  made  them  too  skeptical  to  be  willing  to 
fly  to  ills  they  know  not  of. 

In  her  foreign  relations  Italy  shows  an- 
other improvement.  She  maintains  the  Triple 
Alliance,  but  somewhat  less  burdensomely, 
and  under  conditions  which  have  not  pre- 


312  ITALY  IN  1907 

vented  the  restoration  of  very  friendly  inter- 
course with  France.  Crispi's  rupture  with 
the  French  Republic  blocked  the  regular 
financial  and  commercial  channels  and  caused 
much  hardship ;  but  many  persons  who  for- 
merly denounced  it  now  admit  that  it  has 
been  justified  by  the  results,  for  it  broke  up 
the  unhealthy  tendency  of  the  Italians  to  look 
to  France  for  their  initiative,  and  it  led  the 
French  Republicans  to  understand  that  when 
they  connived  with  the  Vatican  to  harass 
the  Italian  Kingdom  they  were  employing  a 
weapon  which  might  be  turned  against  them- 
selves. Italy  has  always  been  able  to  count 
on  England's  friendship,  and  latterly  this 
good  will  seems  to  have  had  something 
stronger  than  a  polite  sympathy  behind  it. 
Next  to  France,  Italy  is  the  largest  naval 
Power  in  the  Mediterranean,  so  that  her  co- 
operation with  England,  in  case  the  English 
supremacy  at  Malta,  Cyprus,  and  the  Suez 
Canal  were  threatened,  might  be  of  vital  serv- 
ice to  John  Bull.  Italy's  abandonment  of 
her  wild-goose  chase  in  Abyssinia  —  that  ad- 
venture in  Imperialism  which,  besides  drain- 
ing her  of  men  and  treasure,  had  the  demor- 
alizing effect  of  a  blunder  persisted  in  —  has 


ITALY  IN  1907  313 

contributed  largely  to  her  recovery  of  self- 
respect  and  strength. 

Another  factor  which  should  not  be  over- 
looked is  the  personality  of  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  III.  Unlike  his  father,  he  con- 
ceives that  the  Italian  Monarchy  cannot 
function  properly  unless  the  Monarch  plays 
an  active  part,  as  the  Constitution  intends, 
in  the  government  of  the  country.  The  Ital- 
ian King  should  be,  in  theory,  less  auto- 
cratic than  the  German  Emperor,  but  polit- 
ically more  active  than  the  British  Sovereign  ; 
and  this  is  the  view  which  Victor  Emmanuel 
III  has  conscientiously  followed.  He  is  a  man 
of  a  highly-trained  intelligence,  of  a  control- 
ling sense  of  duty,  and  of  unfailing  common 
sense.  His  influence,  which  has  none  of  the 
theatricality  that  one  associates  with  the 
Kaiser,  is  a  very  real  fact,  growing  from 
year  to  year,  to  strengthen  the  Monarchy  and 
help  Italy  at  home  and  abroad. 

Before  passing  on  to  discuss  in  detail  the 
most  striking  change  of  all,  I  must  pause  for 
a  moment  to  mention  a  few  evidences  of  in- 
tellectual vitality.  Carducci,  the  most  emi- 
nent poet  and  critic  of  modern  Italy,  had  been 
silenced  by  failing  health  for  some  time  be- 


314  ITALY   IN   1907 

fore  his  death,  recently,  but  his  presence  has 
been  seen  in  the  work  of  all  the  younger  lit- 
erary men.  The  repudiation  of  D'Annunzio, 
except  by  his  special  clique,  marks  a  health- 
ier tone,  partly  due,  one  might  argue,  to  the 
maturing  of  the  sound  principles  which  Car- 
ducci  sowed.  In  like  manner  Professor  Vil- 
lari  has  bred  up  an  able  body  of  historical 
students  and  writers,  men  skilled  in  the  Ger- 
man methods  of  research  but  free  from  the 
German  heaviness  of  presentation.  Great 
scholars  abound  in  various  specialties,  and 
the  even  rarer  type  of  men  who,  like  Pro- 
fessor Vittorio  Fiorini,  can  organize  and  lead 
great  enterprises  of  cooperative  scholarship, 
has  been  developed.  In  science,  Lombroso, 
Morselli,  Mosso,  Golgi,  who  lately  received 
the  Nobel  prize  for  his  discoveries  in  medi- 
cine, and  Marconi,  enjoy  international  repu- 
tations. So  do  Benedetto  Croce,  one  of  the 
keenest  of  living  Italian  philosophers ;  Pom- 
peo  Molmenti,  the  historian  of  Venice,  and 
Guglielmo  Ferrero,  who  has  made  his  new 
interpretation  of  Imperial  Rome  the  fashion- 
able topic  in  Parisian  salons,  and  has  aroused 
among  his  colleagues  a  vehement  dispute  as 
to  his  method  of  writing  history.  "  He  is  the 


ITALY  IN   1907  315 

only  real  historian  we  have,"  a  man  of  world- 
wide fame  assured  me ;  "  all  the  others  are 
mere  annalists."  "He  writes  a  mixture  of 
psychology  and  romance,  but  not  history," 
was  another  opinion  I  heard  expressed.  In 
fiction  Senator  Fogazzaro  towers  so  far  above 
his  fellows  that  he  stands  in  a  class  by  him- 
self. "  The  Saint "  has  been  read  rather  as 
a  war-cry  or  party  manifesto  than  as  a  novel, 
but  his  earlier  works,  especially  "  Daniele 
Cortis,"  show  that  he  is  a  novelist  by  birth- 
right. The  younger  men  and  women  pour 
out  fiction,  much  of  which  is  popular,  al- 
though it  lacks  epochal  significance,  seeks  too 
much  inspiration  in  Paris,  and  flaunts  as  a 
staple  the  tedious  sexual  theme.  One  veteran, 
Edmondo  de'Amicis,  has  turned  from  writing 
novels  to  Socialism  and  syntax. 

Much  intellectual  activity  of  a  high  order 
has  gone  into  the  reorganizing  of  the  great 
museums  and  the  pushing  forward  of  arche- 
ological  exploration.  The  work  of  Giacomo 
Boni  at  the  Roman  Forum  and  on  the  Pala- 
tine can  best  be  described  as  unique.  The 
inestimable  collections  of  paintings  at  the 
Milan  Brera,  the  Venice  Academy,  and  the 
Florence  Uffizi  have  been  rearranged,  so  that 


316  ITALY  IN   1907 

now  those  galleries  are,  what  they  should  be, 
treasuries  in  which  every  work  of  art  can  be 
studied  both  in  its  historic  relations  and  for 
its  intrinsic  qualities.  The  most  remarkable 
improvement  of  all  has  taken  place  at  the 
Naples  Museum.  Under  the  impelling  genius 
of  Ettore  Pais  —  in  whom  are  combined  im- 
mense erudition,  an  extraordinary  gift  for 
classification,  executive  ability,  and  untiring 
physical  energy  —  that  museum  has  become 
a  model.  No  similar  work  has  been  accom- 
plished in  so  brief  a  time  against  what  seemed 
insuperable  difficulties,  political,  financial,  and 
personal.  Professor  Pais's  countrymen  do  not 
even  yet  recognize  that  he  has  given  Italy 
a  museum  superior  in  its  field  to  the  Louvre 
or  the  British  Museum  or  the  Berlin  Mu- 
seum ;  but  they  will  doubtless  build  a  monu- 
ment to  him  after  his  death.  In  this  sphere 
of  achievement  belongs  the  restoration  by 
Senator  Luca  Beltrami  of  the  Castello  Sfor- 
zesco  at  Milan.  It  is  well  that  such  an  object- 
lesson  of  the  power  of  the  Italian  despots 
should  be  planted  before  the  eyes  of  a  gen- 
eration which,  exasperated  at  to-day's  bur- 
dens, sighs  for  a  medieval  and  Renaissance 
social  perfection  which  never  existed. 


ITALY  IN  1907  317 

But  in  many  respects  the  most  striking 
change  is  in  the  new  attitude  of  the  Vatican. 
A  foreigner  who  skims  only  the  surface  of 
Italian  life  never  understands  how  naturally 
and  completely  the  Italians  separate  Church 
and  State.  They  distinguish  exactly  between 
the  political  and  religious  side  of  Catholicism. 
They  discount  the  appeal  to  the  religious 
side  which  the  adroit  managers  at  the  Vati- 
can make  when  they  are  seeking  a  political 
advantage.  They  have  smiled  half-cynically, 
half-contemptuously,  for  instance,  at  the  pre- 
tense which  the  Papal  reactionists  have  kept 
up  since  1870  that  the  Pope  is  a  "prisoner"; 
for  they  know  pretty  accurately  how  much 
that  pretense  has  been  worth  in  dollars  and 
cents  by  stimulating  the  contributions  and 
inflaming  the  zeal  of  Catholics  in  foreign 
countries.  So,  too,  they  have  taken  the  peri- 
odical denunciations  of  the  Italian  Govern- 
ment at  their  true  value.  The  parry-and-fence 
has  come  to  be  an  affair  as  well  understood 
on  both  sides  as  the  vituperations  which 
criminal  lawyers  hurl  at  each  other  in  court, 
before  they  go  to  dine  together,  as  if  nothing 
had  been  said. 

But,  although  a  tacit  modus  vwendi  has 


318  ITALY  IN  1907 

long  existed,  and  although  since  1870  ninety 
per  cent,  at  least,  of  the  Italians  would  never 
have  consented  to  the  restoration  of  the 
Pope's  temporal  power,  there  has  lurked  in 
their  minds  till  lately  the  thought  that  pos- 
sibly foreign  interference  might  try  to  bring 
that  about.  At  any  rate,  they  have  had  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  Vatican  would 
annoy  Italy  as  much  as  it  could  —  that  being 
simply  part  of  the  game  which  Pius  IX 
elected  to  play  and  Leo  XIII  decided  to  con- 
tinue. But  since  the  advent  of  Pius  X  there 
has  come  about  a  cessation  of  hostilities. 
At  the  very  moment  when  Liberal  Catholics 
are  chafing  at  the  reaction  which  the  Vatican 
has  wrought  in  religious  matters,  they  are 
astonished  by  an  unheard-of  quiescence  in 
political  matters.  The  same  pope  who  per- 
mits the  suppression  of  a  prelate  like  Bishop 
Bonomelli,  who  sanctions  the  condemnation 
of  Fogazzaro,  the  most  distinguished  Catho- 
lic layman  in  Italy,  who  winks  at  the  scatter- 
ing of  the  Christian  Democrats,  and  issues 
orders  that  the  Bible  is  to  be  interpreted  lit- 
erally, sanctions  an  agreement  with  the  Ital- 
ian State !  Let  us  examine  somewhat  closely 
the  pontiff  and  the  seeming  paradox. 


ITALY  IN   1907  319 

For  Pius  X  personally  everybody  in  Italy 
has  sincere  respect.  Clericals,  Liberals,  and 
Independents  concur  in  praising  his  piety 
and  genuine  religious  fervor,  not  less  than 
the  purity  of  his  motives.  "  He  is  a  model 
parish  priest,"  I  heard  from  many  witnesses; 
"  but,"  most  of  them  added  "  not  the  stuff 
out  of  which  successful  popes  are  made  now- 
adays. Religion  is  well,  piety  is  well,  but  the 
great  Catholic  machine,  whose  dynamo  is  in 
the  Vatican,  must  be  run  by  a  different  sort 
of  power."  And  immediately  comparisons  are 
drawn  between  Pius  X  and  his  predecessor. 
Leo  XIII,  like  the  mightiest  of  the  popes 
in  earlier  days,  —  like  Hildebrand  and  like 
Innocent  III,  —  was  a  sufficiently  adept  theo- 
logian and  a  master  diplomat.  The  high 
prestige  to  which  he  raised  the  Church  was 
due  more  to  his  diplomacy  than  to  his  theo- 
logy. His  diplomatic  instinct  taught  him 
when  to  push  theology  into  the  foreground 
and  when,  discreetly,  to  keep  it  out  of  sight. 
Thanks  to  this  fact,  he  created  the  illusion 
of  always  winning  his  case.  He  inherited 
from  Pius  IX,  for  instance,  the  Culturkampf 
in  Germany,  and  for  eight  years,  he  main- 
tained outwardly  a  no-surrender  attitude :  but 


320  ITALY  IN   1907 

meanwhile  Bismarck  was  gaining  his  point, 
and  when  the  Pope  saw  the  futility  of  strug- 
gling further,  he  had  the  adroitness  to  make 
it  appear  that  he,  and  not  the  German  Chan- 
cellor, had  won.  So  after  opposing  the  French 
Republic  for  many  years,  and  conniving  at 
every  effort  to  overthrow  it,  when  he  found 
that  it  was  too  stanch  to  be  overthrown,  he 
prudently  decided  to  accept  French  repub- 
licanism ;  and  again  his  recognition  was  so 
adroitly  ostentatious  that  it  seemed  as  if  he 
were  conferring  a  favor  on  France,  instead 
of  acknowledging  a  defeat.  Such  achieve- 
ments are  the  acme  of  diplomacy;  and  by 
them  Leo  XIII  secured  for  his  Church  not 
only  a  fruitful  influence  over  Catholic 
countries,  but  a  larger  measure  of  respect 
among  Protestants  than  she  had  enjoyed 
since  the  Reformation. 

Leo  died  in  the  summer  of  1903.  In  less 
than  two  years  his  successor,  "  the  model 
parish  priest,"  had  squandered  that  immense 
legacy  of  prestige  and  good  will,  and  by 
the  end  of  1906  he  found  even  Spain  —  the 
home  of  the  Inquisition,  of  the  Jesuits,  of 
the  Counter-Reformation,  and  of  Catholic 
intolerance  —  proposing  to  throw  off  the  fet- 


ITALY  IN   1907  321 

ters  of  Ultramontanism.  Worse  than  this,  he 
had  driven  France,  the  chief  contributor  of 
Catholic  money,  to  open  rebellion.  How  did 
this  come  about  ?  The  explanation  given  by 
Italians  of  all  shades  is  that  the  Jesuits  are 
in  full  control  —  that  Pius  X  was  elected, 
indeed,  as  their  candidate.  When  Leo  XIII 
died,  three  possibilities  presented  themselves 
to  the  College  of  Cardinals.  They  might 
choose  a  Liberal,  who  should  frankly  accept 
the  new  order  and  honestly  work  to  put  an 
end  to  the  political  and  worldly  activities  of 
the  Church  and  strive  to  make  it  —  what  its 
founders  intended  it  to  be  —  a  religious  in- 
stitution. Next,  they  might  elect  Cardinal 
Rampolla,  the  ablest  member  of  the  Sacred 
College,  and  the  natural  continuer  of  Leo's 
policy.  Finally,  they  might  agree  on  a  Re- 
actionist. The  Liberals  among  them  were  few 
in  number  and  faint-hearted.  Rampolla  en- 
countered the  implacable  hostility  of  the 
Jesuits  and  of  the  other  malcontents  who  had 
been  held  too  long  in  check  by  Leo  to  consent 
to  stay  out  in  the  cold  during  another  ponti- 
ficate run  on  similar  lines.  Accordingly,  they 
combined  on  Cardinal  Sarto,  the  Venetian 
Patriarch.  He  was  not  a  Jesuit,  he  was  pious, 


322  ITALY  IN  1907 

somewhat  naif,  with  the  obstinacy  of  virtuous 
men,  narrow  in  proportion  to  their  rectitude  : 
a  capital  instrument  for  the  Jesuits'  purpose. 
They  forced  upon  him  for  Secretary  of  State 
Merry  del  Val,  a  Spaniard  brought  up  by 
Jesuits,  without  experience,  ominously  young, 
ambitious,  and  naturally  in  full  harmony 
with  his  creators.  They  had  little  difficulty 
in  persuading  Pius  that  the  policy  they  sug- 
gested to  him  originated  with  himself.  In 
this  way  has  a  pope,  whose  election  was 
hailed  by  those  who  did  not  know  him  as  a 
triumph  for  Liberalism,  become  the  leader 
of  reaction. 

But  how  does  it  happen,  many  ask,  that 
the  Jesuits  advise  so  disastrous  a  policy  ? 
The  reply  is  simple :  there  is  no  greater  delu- 
sion than  that  which  attributes  to  the  Jesuits 
unusual  capacity  for  statesmanship.  Because 
they  are  supposed  to  excel  in  craft,  it  is  as- 
sumed that  they  make  successful  statesmen. 
History  shows  that  for  three  centuries  they 
controlled,  directly  or  indirectly,  at  differ- 
ent times,  the  political  destiny  of  Catholic 
Europe,  yet  nothing  is  surer  than  that  when 
they  were  in  the  ascendant  the  country  they 
controlled  declined.  The  annals  of  Spain,  of 


ITALY  IN   1907  323 

Portugal,  of  France,  of  Italy,  of  Austria  bear 
witness  to  this  truth.  The  rate  of  decline  of 
the  Papal  power  itself  under  Gregory  XVI 
and  Pius  IX  can  be  measured  by  the  in- 
crease in  Jesuit  influence ;  the  undermining 
of  Charles  X  and  of  the  Second  French  Em- 
pire was  as  surely  achieved  by  the  Jesuits  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  as  was  the  downfall 
of  the  Stuarts  in  the  seventeenth.  Many  other 
similar  instances  will  occur  to  students  of 
modern  history.  So  commonly  does  disaster 
follow  on  Jesuit  ascendency  that  one  would 
be  justified  in  predicting  that  the  fact  that 
Jesuits  are  at  the  helm  to-day  in  the  Vatican 
forebodes  a  further  humiliation  for  the  Holy 
See. 

That  the  Jesuits  should  be  bad  statesmen 
is  inevitable.  Excellent  as  is  their  training 
for  many  purposes,  the  very  constitution  and 
ideals  of  their  Company  make  them  fanatics. 
They  obey  logic  as  remorselessly  and  as  dis- 
astrously as  Robespierre  obeyed  it.  But  the 
first  attribute  of  a  statesman,  as  Cavour  said, 
is  tact  to  discern  the  possible  —  a  very  dif- 
ferent matter  from  trying  to  twist  the  world 
to  fit  a  preconceived  formula.  The  true  states- 
man, recognizing  the  inevitable  evolution  of 


324  ITALY  IN   1907 

human  society,  makes  it  his  business  to  re- 
model the  past  according  to  the  needs  and 
ideals  of  the  present.  In  the  largest  sense, 
he  experiments.  But  the  Jesuit,  being  im- 
movably rooted  in  the  past,  denies  the  claims 
of  the  present.  Since  1560  he  has  had  but 
the  single  greeting  —  "This  is  damnable" 
—  for  every  symptom  of  theological  growth, 
as  well  as  for  democracy,  vaccination,  rail- 
roads, telegraphs,  free  speech,  and  free  press, 
and  a  hundred  other  manifestations  of  pro- 
gress. He  has  been  magnificently  consistent, 
perfectly  logical,  but  with  a  consistency  and 
logic  which  disqualify  him  from  succeeding 
in  statesmanship.  If  we  are  to  believe  the 
Jesuit  declarations  from  the  Council  of  Trent 
down  to  the  Syllabus  of  1864  and  onward  to 
our  own  day  when  Pius  X,  at  Father  Billet's 
behest,  condemns  "  Modernism,"  the  modern 
world  is  incompatible  with  Roman  Cathol- 
icism. But  what  if  the  modern  world  turn  the 
proposition  round  and  declare  that  Roman 
Catholicism,  a  medieval  product,  is  incom- 
patible with  the  modern  world  ?  Leo  XIII 
saw  that  in  millions  of  minds  this  reversal 
was  actually  being  made  or  considered,  and 
he  set  himself  to  work  to  demonstrate  its 


ITALY  IN   1907  325 

inaccuracy.  Pius  X,  on  the  contrary,  listened 
to  the  Jesuits  and  forced  the  issue  in  France. 
The  French  Republic,  after  long  waiting, 
announced  its  determination  to  put  an  end  to 
the  outworn  alliance  between  Church  and 
State,  and  to  establish  perfect  sectarian  lib- 
erty. The  Greeks,  the  Jews,  the  Protestants 
in  France  found  the  new  laws  satisfactory, 
and  many  Roman  Catholics  were  willing  to 
accept  them  ;  but  the  Vatican  said  No,  with 
the  results  which  we  have  seen.  Thereby  it 
has  virtually  declared  that  religious  liberty 
and  equality  are  incompatible  to  it — at  least 
in  France ;  for  the  "  religious  liberty "  to 
which  the  Vatican  has  recently  expressed 
its  devotion  is  really  nothing  but  religious 
monopoly,  and  American  Catholics  are  disin- 
genuous, to  say  the  least,  when  they  declare 
that  the  Vatican  insists  on  securing  in  France 
only  such  freedom  as  Catholics  enjoy  in  the 
United  States. 

The  Italians  have  watched  this  struggle 
with  increasing  satisfaction,  quick  to  see  the 
mistaken  policy  of  the  Vatican,  and  to  re- 
cognize in  one  blunder  after  another  the  sign 
of  their  adversary's  weakness.  For  Italians 
will  instinctively  regard  the  Papalist  faction 


326  ITALY  IN  1907 

as  their  adversary  until  that  faction  ceases  to 
put  forward,  even  in  a  Pickwickian  sense, 
claims  to  temporal  sovereignty.  Throughout 
Italy  the  sympathy  of  the  intelligent  classes, 
excluding,  of  course,  the  Papalists,  was  al- 
most unanimously  with  France.  Officially, 
Italy  maintained  an  absolutely  correct  atti- 
tude, going  even  so  far  as  to  prevent  a  pro- 
French  demonstration  in  Rome,  in  order  that 
the  Vatican  might  not  be  able  to  cite  such 
a  meeting  as  a  proof  of  the  Government's 
secret  unfriendliness.  In  other  places,  sym- 
pathy with  the  French  Government  was 
freely  expressed,  and  the  Clericals  also  had 
their  counter-demonstrations.  The  Italians' 
hope  that  France  would  not  yield  was  not 
wholly  unselfish.  Believing  in  religious  lib- 
erty, they  are  glad  to  see  it  prevail  in  other 
countries,  but  their  first  concern  is  that  the 
rupture  between  France  and  the  Vatican  shall 
remove  the  possibility  that  France  might  in- 
terfere to  restore  the  Temporal  Power.  French 
interference  was  for  years  a  danger  they  had 
to  take  into  their  reckoning ;  for  French  poli- 
ticians have  not  always  disdained  to  intrigue 
with  the  Clericals  to  stir  up  trouble  in  Italy 
and  even  to  threaten  to  interpose  in  behalf 


ITALY  IN  1907  327 

of  the  Pope.  Nor  have  the  Italians  forgotten 
that  it  was  Louis  Napoleon's  protectorate 
which  prolonged  the  existence  of  the  Papacy 
and  made  the  Roman  Question  insoluble. 
The  removal  of  this  danger  now  lifts  Italy 
to  a  new  plane ;  for  Austria,  the  only  other 
Catholic  Power  with  a  considerable  army,  has 
nothing  to  gain  by  a  war  against  Italy,  at 
the  instigation  of  the  Vatican.  If  Jingoes 
and  yellow  journalists  should  bring  Austria 
and  Italy  to  blows,  it  would  not  be  over  the 
Pope. 

The  resumption  of  friendly  relations  be- 
tween the  Vatican  and  the  Quirinal  is  of 
course  officially  disavowed  on  both  sides ;  but 
it  is  an  undeniable  fact,  and  indicates  the 
tacit  recognition  by  the  Papalists  that  they 
need  the  Kingdom  of  Italy.  The  one  thing 
indispensable  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
is  that  its  headquarters  shall  remain  at  Rome. 
Some  fifteen  years  or  so  ago,  when  the  politi- 
cians of  the  Vatican  were  plotting  to  incense 
the  Catholic  world  against  the  Italian  Govern- 
ment, they  thought  they  could  strengthen 
their  case  by  threatening  to  remove  the  Pope 
from  Rome  as  a  sign  that  his  "  imprisonment " 
had  become  intolerable.  Thereupon  Crispi 


328  ITALY  IN  1907 

sent  word  to  Leo  that,  if  he  wished  to  quit 
Rome  and  Italy,  he  should  be  escorted  with 
sovereign  honors  to  the  frontier,  that  every 
courtesy  should  be  shown  to  him,  but  that 
neither  Pope  nor  Curia  should  ever  come 
back.  Leo  heeded  the  warning.  He  knew  that 
Crispi  meant  what  he  said,  and  was  the  man 
to  carry  out  his  purpose;  he  knew,  too,  that 
were  the  Roman  Church  to  hail  from  Barce- 
lona, or  Avignon,  or  Graz,  or  Baltimore,  it 
would  cease  to  be  Roman,  cease  to  speak  urbi 
et  orbi,  and  inevitably  sink  into  a  second-rate 
institution.  Since  that  time  there  have  been 
no  serious  threats  of  seeking  a  more  congenial 
home  for  the  Holy  See. 

Although  the  Church  is  Catholic,  yet  its 
management  is  Italian,  and  when  it  comes  to 
risking  their  control,  the  Italian  majority  in 
the  hierarchy  may  be  trusted  never  voluntar- 
ily to  abandon  the  Italian  environment  on 
which  their  supremacy  depends.  For  four 
hundred  years,  by  arranging  the  College  of 
Cardinals  so  that  its  majority  is  always  Italian, 
they  have  permitted  no  foreigner  to  be  chosen 
Pope.  At  the  present  time  there  is  only  one 
American  cardinal,  although  if  the  red  robe 
were  conferred  upon  Catholic  prelates  in  the 


ITALY  IN  1907  329 

United  States  in  the  same  ratio  as  in  Italy, 
there  would  be  twenty  American  cardinals. 
So  there  are  only  four  French  cardinals,  yet 
the  population  of  France  nominally  Catholic 
outnumbers  that  of  Italy,  which  has  over 
thirty  cardinals  and  the  Pope  besides.  Some 
of  the  more  progressive  Catholics  foresee  that 
an  agitation  for  a  fairer  distribution  of  the 
great  prizes  of  the  hierarchy  may  not  long 
be  deferred.  "Taxation  without  representa- 
tion "  is  a  powerful  wedge,  and  in  this  case 
the  charge  applies  in  so  far  as  it  is  true  that 
the  contributions  of  Catholics  all  over  the 
world  go  to  maintain  a  disproportionately 
large  body  of  Italian  prelates. 

Having  tried  in  vain  since  1870  to  over- 
throw the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  or  at  least  to  re- 
cover temporal  control  over  Rome,  and  being 
convinced  at  last  that  they  cannot  secure 
foreign  aid  to  restore  them,  the  Papalists 
have  adopted  a  new  policy.  For  a  while, 
internal  revolution  seems  to  have  dangled 
before  their  imaginations  as  a  cheering  pos- 
sibility. Help  from  foreigners  being  out  of 
the  question,  why  might  not  the  Monarchy 
be  demolished  from  within  ?  Discontented 
factions  were  noisy,  the  idle  and  the  dis- 


330  ITALY  IN  1907 

orderly  were  numerous,  and  in  any  upset 
the  Papalists  might  hope  to  profit.  There 
is  a  strong  presumption,  although  naturally 
no  documentary  proof,  that  they  secretly 
cast  about  to  form  a  league  with  the  vari- 
ous opponents  of  the  Monarchy ;  undeniably 
they  did  not  allow  any  opportunity  to  es- 
cape for  embarrassing  the  Government.  And 
then,  having  been  thwarted  again  and  again, 
they  saw  a  great  light.  They  realized  that 
if  the  Monarchy  were  overturned,  it  could 
be  only  by  the  Republicans  and  the  Social- 
ists, whose  next  act  would  be  to  destroy 
Church  and  Curia,  root  and  branch.  When 
they  realized  this,  the  Papalini  took  coun- 
sel of  common  sense  and  of  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  They  accepted  the  con- 
tinuance of  Monarchy  as  the  condition  indis- 
pensable to  their  own  existence.  Hence  the 
latter-day  rapprochement  between  the  Vati- 
can and  the  Quirinal,  the  sure  avowal  that 
what  the  hierarchy  dreads  most  of  all  is  a 
political  catastrophe  which  might  compel  it 
to  depart  from  Italy.  The  State  having  got 
on  for  thirty  years  in  spite  of  the  open  hos- 
tility and  insidious  intrigues  of  the  Church, 
now  becomes,  after  a  fashion,  the  protector 


ITALY  IN  1907  331 

of  the  Church.  Certainly,  the  divinity  that 
shapes  our  ends  likes  occasionally  to  indulge 
his  sense  of  humor. 

By  this  action,  the  Clericals  do  not  in- 
tend to  relinquish  their  immemorial  claims. 
If  the  occasion  should  ever  arise  for  them 
to  seize  Rome  they  would  not  let  it  slip ; 
but  most  of  them  admit  in  private  that 
there  is  just  about  as  much  probability  of 
restoring  the  extinct  line  of  Stuarts  to  the 
throne  of  England  as  of  restoring  the  Pope 
to  the  temporal  sovereignty  of  the  Eternal 
City.  Modern  government  has  ceased  to  be 
an  affair  for  ecclesiastics.  Italian  Clericals 
may  hope  in  time  to  exert  an  influence  in 
Parliament,  as  they  do  in  France,  Germany, 
Austria,  and  Belgium ;  they  may  even,  con- 
ceivably, control  an  administration  in  the 
ebb-and-flow  of  party  struggles ;  but  this  is 
very  different  from  having  the  government 
handed  over  to  cassocked  and  berrettaed 
clerics.  And  at  Rome  many  of  the  stanchest 
Blacks  would  shudder  if  they  believed  there 
were  the  slightest  possibility  of  the  restora- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  government ;  for  they 
know  that  that  would  involve  an  immediate 
financial  crash,  a  fall  in  the  value  of  pro- 


332  ITALY  IN  1907 

perty,  the  stoppage  of  industries,  the  turning 
over  to  untrained  and  incompetent  priests 
of  the  management  of  the  great  agencies  of 
modern  progress  and  convenience.  Imagine 
the  consternation  which  would  ensue  if  on 
a  given  day  our  railway  or  telephone  sys- 
tems were  to  be  entrusted  to  boards  com- 
posed of  Roman  Catholic  bishops  and  priests, 
instead  of  to  the  experts  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  railways  or  telephones,  and 
you  will  understand  how  the  Romans  would 
feel  if  they  could  be  brought  to  regard  the 
restoration  of  the  Temporal  Power  as  a  live 
issue. 

Foreigners,  and  especially  untraveled 
Catholics,  still  think  of  Rome  as  the  Papal 
city;  but  in  truth  Rome  is  now  the  Italian 
capital,  in  which  Papal  interests  hold  a  sec- 
ondary place.  The  Clericals  —  including  in 
this  class  all  those  who  have  Church  offices, 
or  are  dependent  upon  such  office-holders, 
together  with  members  of  religious  orders, 
and  members  of  families  which,  from  motives 
of  conviction  or  interest,  refuse  to  accept  the 
Monarchy  —  all  these  persons  probably  do 
not  number  one  tenth  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Rome.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  among 


ITALY  IN  1907  333 

the  priests  and  other  religious  there  are  many 
Liberals,  and  that  even  among  the  avowed 
Clericals  there  are  few  who  wish  to  see  Italy 
destroyed.  But  the  dominant  life  of  the  city 
is  Italian,  not  Roman.  The  thousands  of 
Government  employees,  with  their  families 
and  connections,  the  military  garrison,  the 
civil  courts,  the  central  administration  of 
the  railways,  depend  upon  the  maintenance 
of  the  Monarchy  in  the  Eternal  City.  These 
groups,  moreover,  are  not  Romans,  but  Ital- 
ians, natives  of  every  part  of  the  Peninsula, 
who  have  gravitated  to  their  national  capital 
just  as  Americans  gravitate  to  Washington. 
A  similar  change  has  transformed  Roman 
society.  Down  to  1870  the  aristocracy  and 
the  classes  affiliated  with  it  were  naturally 
Roman  and  Papal.  But  with  the  entrance  of 
the  King,  the  Court,  government,  and  aris- 
tocracy became  Italian.  The  grandees  of 
Piedmont,  Lombardy,  Venetia,  Tuscany, 
Naples,  and  Sicily  met  to  form  a  truly  na- 
tional aristocracy,  compared  with  which  the 
Roman  aristocracy  could  muster  only  a  small 
contingent.  Some  of  the  Romans,  already 
tried  patriots,  welcomed  the  new  order; 
others,  irreconcilable,  treated  the  House  of 


334  ITALY  IN  1907 

Savoy  and  its  court  as  intruders  and  par- 
venues.  But  little  by  little  the  success  of  the 
Kingdom  has  wrought  a  great  change  in 
the  attitude  of  the  old  Roman  nobles.  To  be 
deprived  of  the  opportunity  to  display  their 
wealth  or  their  social  hauteur  was  a  sacrifice 
which  many  of  them  saw  no  sufficient  reason 
for  making.  They  aspired  also  to  the  offices 
and  honors  which  the  New  Regime  could 
bestow,  and  they  felt  no  imperative  call  to 
endure  social  martyrdom  as  a  protest  against 
the  unification  of  Italy.  Consequently,  they 
made  their  peace  with  the  Quirinal.  There 
are  Papal  families  of  ancient  pedigree  which 
resolutely  hold  out,  like  the  Bourbons  of  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain,  against  the  modern 
order;  but  a  Colonna  at  the  Quirinal  is  at 
least  the  social  equivalent  of  a  Chigi  at  the 
Vatican. 

One  result  of  this  change  has  not  been 
sufficiently  remarked.  So  long  as  Rome  was 
the  Papal  capital,  members  of  the  great  Papal 
families  went  into  the  Church  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Younger  sons  had  to  be  looked  after, 
and  they  expected  the  Papacy  to  look  after 
them.  Nor  did  they  expect  in  vain.  Every 
great  family  had  its  monsignore  or  its  bishop, 


ITALY  IN  1907  335 

its  legate  or  its  cardinal ;  and  the  lucrative 
civil  offices,  mostly  sinecures,  fell  to  other 
aristocrats  who  did  not  care  to  take  orders. 
The  Papal  Court,  whether  clerical  or  lay,  was 
therefore  aristocratic,  and  the  hierarchy  itself 
was  —  to  employ  the  common  phrase  —  of 
the  social  upper  crust.  But  that  condition 
has  passed.  The  Pope  has  no  lay  sinecures 
to  bestow ;  and  the  sons  of  the  Roman  aristo- 
cratic families  —  even  of  the  Blacks  —  are 
no  longer  attracted  to  enter  the  Church  in 
order  to  qualify  for  ecclesiastical  prizes.  It 
follows  inevitably  that  the  personnel  of  the 
hierarchy  has  ceased  to  be  fashionable.  What 
this  means  will  be  appreciated  by  every  one 
who  recognizes  how  great  a  part  social  pre- 
stige plays  in  the  success  of  institutions. 

The  Papalini  at  Rome  feel  this,  although 
they  are  not  all  so  frank  in  expressing  it  as 
was  a  distinguished  noble  of  an  old  Black 
family,  who  said  to  me :  "  Pius  X  is  a  good 
man,  religious,  well-meaning,  but  what  can 
we  expect?  He  is  only  a  peasant,  with  no 
social  training,  brought  up  in  an  out-of-the- 
way  corner  of  Italy,  where  he  had  no  con- 
ception of  how  to  run  a  Church  whose 
200,000,000  members  live  in  all  parts  of 


336  ITALY  IN  1907 

the  world.  Naturally,  he  ( butts  in '  and 
makes  the  blunders  we  see."  "  Only  a  peas- 
ant "  —  there  spoke  the  aristocrat.  I  was  re- 
minded of  a  Philadelphian  who  once  assured 
me  that  "Abraham  Lincoln  did  very  well, 
but  he  wasn't  a  gentleman — wouldn't  have 
been  met  in  West  Walnut  Street  society." 
Now,  Leo  XIII  was  Count  Pecci,  and  Pius  IX 
was  Count  Mastai  Ferretti,  aristocrats  by 
descent  and  temperament,  and  to-day  the 
aristocracy  feels  rather  keenly  the  difference 
between  them  and  Giuseppe  Sarto,  the  Vene- 
tian peasant.  The  Vicar  of  God  on  earth 
(strange  as  it  seems,  considering  what  is 
reported  of  the  antecedents  of  Jesus  Christ) 
lacks  something  in  not  being  born  in  the 
proper  social  set. 

But  although  Rome  has  ceased  to  be  the 
Papal  city,  it  is  still  the  centre  of  Catholic 
Christendom,  and  of  late  years  Catholic  fra- 
ternities and  organizations  of  all  kinds  have 
made  it  their  home,  until  now  it  numbers 
more  religious  houses  than  in  the  old  Papal 
days.  This  is  of  itself  a  tribute  to  the  liberal 
treatment  which  the  Italian  Government 
accords  even  to  its  enemies.  At  the  very 
moment  when  Roman  Catholic  politicians  in 


ITALY  IN   1907  337 

foreign  countries  were  crying  out  against 
the  cruelty  of  keeping  the  Pope  "  a  prison- 
er" in  the  Vatican,  Catholic  priests,  monks, 
and  nuns  were  flocking  to  Rome  to  establish 
themselves  there,  where  they  feel  secure  in 
their  persons  and  their  property.  Not  only 
have  they  invested  large  sums  in  real  estate 
and  buildings,  but  it  is  no  secret  that  the 
Papal  corporations  are  heavy  holders  of  Ital- 
ian Government  securities.  Not  all  Italians 
regard  with  satisfaction  this  silent  re-invasion 
of  Rome  by  Papal  elements.  They  foresee 
that  if  the  process  continues,  a  milieu  will 
be  created  in  which  old  abuses  may  revive. 
They  regard  as  corrupting  the  presence  of 
bodies  of  Clericals  who  work  underhand  and 
through  intrigue,  according  to  the  methods 
which  their  kind  have  employed  for  cen- 
turies. 

Some  of  these  critics,  and  among  them  one 
counts  several  of  the  foremost  Italians,  view 
with  disgust  or  regret  the  recent  rapproche- 
ment between  the  Vatican  and  the  Quirinal. 
They  insist  that  the  truce,  or  alliance,  call  it 
what  you  will,  benefits  the  Pope  and  not  the 
King.  The  Royal  Government  had  proved, 
during  thirty-five  years,  its  ability  to  go  on 


338  ITALY  IN  1907 

its  way  irrespective  of  Papal  hostility;  by 
consenting  now  to  accept  Papal  overtures,  it 
appears  to  set  an  unwarranted  value  on  Papal 
friendship,  and  it  hampers  the  political  march 
of  Italy  towards  the  goal  of  Liberalism ;  for 
the  views  of  the  Vatican  party  must  insens- 
ibly react  on  the  Monarchy.  There  will  be 
secret  understandings,  bargains,  collusions, 
in  which  the  slippery,  astute,  and  unscrupu- 
lous politicians  of  the  Curia  may  be  counted 
upon  to  outwit  the  politicians  of  the  Consulta. 
To  this  the  Ministerialists  reply  that  the 
Kingdom  of  Italy  has  never  made  war  on 
the  Catholic  religion,  that  it  has,  on  the  con- 
trary, always  desired  to  see  the  Church 
work  freely  in  a  free  State;  and  that  when 
the  Vatican  gives  up  its  political  hostility, 
the  Government  cannot  do  less  than  treat  it 
courteously. 

But  while  this  tacit  rapprochement  has 
been  effected  between  Church  and  State,  in 
the  Church  itself  there  has  been  a  marked 
reaction  under  Pius  X.  The  same  influences 
that  have  embroiled  the  Vatican  with  France 
and  undone  elsewhere  the  achievements  of 
Leo  XIII,  have  cried  halt  to  every  sign  of 
religious  Liberalism.  The  fate  that  has  over- 


ITALY  IN  1907  339 

taken  the  Christian  Democrats  may  serve  as 
an  example.  They  are  one  of  the  most  hope- 
ful religious  symptoms  of  modern  Italy ;  for 
they  are  sincere,  earnest  men,  imbued  with 
the  desire  to  apply  religion  to  life.  They  wish 
to  purge  the  slums,  to  raise  the  downtrodden, 
to  educate  the  ignorant,  to  bring  to  the 
masses  a  helpful  knowledge  of  the  social  and 
economic  principles  to  which  the  world  now 
looks  for  health,  and  to  kindle  among  the 
elite  a  sense  of  their  responsibility.  They  saw 
the  avowed  Socialists  doing  the  work  among 
the  lower  classes  which  ought  to  be  done  by 
the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  so  they 
launched  forth  with  zeal  —  some  to  operate 
by  personal  contact,  others  to  spread  their 
propaganda  by  addresses  and  writings.  They 
founded  several  journals,  and  in  Don  Romolo 
Murri,  their  religious  chief,  they  had  a  man 
intellectually  superior  and  sincerely  religious. 
Among  laymen  their  prophet-leader  was  Sena- 
tor Fogazzaro,  a  poet  and  novelist  of  genius, 
who  incarnated  in  "The  Saint"  many  of 
their  ideals.  For  a  while  the  Vatican  not  only 
tolerated  but  seemed  to  welcome  them,  re- 
garding their  movement  as  a  wholesome 
counter-current  to  Socialism,  which  was  mak- 


340  ITALY  IN  1907 

ing  inroads  into  the  masses.  Pius  X  was  sup- 
posed to  look  with  particular  favor  on  them 
and  to  take  personal  satisfaction  in  Senator 
Fogazzaro's  views.  Then  came  a  revulsion. 
"The  Saint"  was  put  on  the  Index,  the  lead- 
ing Demo-Cristiani  disappeared  from  Rome, 
or  kept  themselves  secluded ;  their  editorial 
offices  were  closed ;  Don  Murri  was  assailed 
by  the  Jesuit  press  and  annoyed  by  petty 
persecutions.  "We  must  wait  patiently  till 
the  wind  changes  in  the  Vatican,"  one  of 
them  wrote  to  me  from  the  remote  province 
to  which  he  had  been  practically  banished. 

In  suppressing  the  Christian  Democrats 
and  in  proscribing  "  The  Saint,"  both  having 
Liberal  tendencies,  the  Jesuits  have  been 
wholly  logical.  "If  you  grant  an  inch  to 
Liberalism,"  they  consistently  argue,  "  it  will 
take  an  ell.  Christian  Democrats  propose  to 
show  that  the  most  important  thing  is  to  do 
good  to  their  fellow  men  —  that  that  is  the 
essence  of  religion.  If  we  admit  that,  what 
becomes  of  Catholicism,  of  authority,  of  faith, 
of  religion  itself?"  And  yet  in  spite  of 
logic,  the  great  majority  of  the  intelligent 
Italian  Catholics  regard  the  suppression  of 
the  Christian  Democrats,  the  condemnation 


ITALY  IN   1907  341 

of  "  The  Saint "  and  the  recent  furious  bulls 
against  Modernism,  as  stupid  blunders :  for 
the  majority  are  Liberal  and  they  resent  the 
implication  that  Catholicism  is  incompatible 
with  Liberalism.  Caring  little  about  theo- 
logical quibbles,  they  fret  at  the  reactionary 
policy  which  prohibits  them  from  being  patri- 
otic citizens  and  even  from  performing  acts 
of  common  Christian  charity.  They  protest 
in  the  name  of  the  Church  that  it  is  a  mis- 
take to  forbid  churchmen  to  exercise  legiti- 
mate influence  on  public  and  social  issues. 
Their  spokesman,  Senator  Fogazzaro,  does 
not  approve,  however,  of  the  formation  of 
a  Clerical  Party  because  he  believes  that  such 
a  party,  preoccupied  with  its  selfish  political 
interests,  would  set  the  political  above  the 
religious  —  witness  the  career  of  the  Clerical 
Party  in  Germany  —  and  provoke  a  reaction 
against  the  Church.  "  What  he  desires,"  he 
wrote  recently,  "  is  that  there  shall  be  Cath- 
olics in  the  ranks  of  every  party,  ready  to 
unite  only  when,  were  the  rights  of  the 
Catholic  conscience  threatened,  they  could 
count  on  the  support  of  all  the  friends  of 
liberty."  And  so  in  the  social-economic  field, 
he  urges  that  "  since  action  exclusively  Catho- 


342  ITALY  IN   1907 

lie  might  be  suspected  of  serving  party  ends, 
he  would  prefer  to  see  the  Catholics  take  the 
initiative  suggested  to  them  by  a  noble  senti- 
ment of  solidarity  with  the  people  which 
works  and  suffers,  and  then  to  accept  the  col- 
laboration of  all  persons  of  good  will,  irre- 
spective of  creed,  and  to  set  to  work  with  a 
programme  to  which  the  agnostic  and  the  most 
ardent  believer  can  equally  adhere."  There 
we  have  the  Liberal-religious  reply  to  the 
Jesuit-theological  declaration ;  and  nobody 
who  is  familiar  with  history  or  with  the  under- 
currents of  Catholicism  in  Italy  to-day  can 
doubt  that  the  tide  of  Liberalism  is  rising. 
Some  time  or  other,  it  may  be  next  year,  it 
may  be  ten  years  hence,  it  will  rise  above  the 
breakwater  which  the  Jesuit  reaction  has 
thrown  up  against  it.  The  Demo-Cristiani 
know  that,  from  the  first  Franciscans  on, 
every  group,  that  set  out  on  the  simple  plan 
of  doing  good,  has  been  opposed,  at  the  out- 
set, by  the  Papal  entourage. 

The  nearer  we  approach  Rome  the  more 
does  the  Church  appear  to  be  a  political 
rather  than  a  religious  institution.  In  Rome 
itself  the  political  aspect  is  paramount.  Not 
that  there  are  not  spiritually-minded  men  in 


ITALY  IN  1907  343 

the  Vatican  —  Pius  X  is  a  noble  example  of 
a  prince  of  the  Church  who  has  preserved 
his  piety  up  to  old  age.  Nevertheless  it  is 
notorious  that  political  considerations  dom- 
inate, even  in  purely  religious  matters.  Many 
persons  believe,  for  instance,  that  Pius  X,  in 
resisting  the  introduction  of  liberal  laws  in 
France,  has  had  the  secret  support  of  the 
German  Emperor,  who  hoped  that  out  of 
the  dispute  a  civil  war  might  spring  up,  to 
the  weakening  of  the  French  Republic.  This 
suspicion  may  be  well  founded,  for  it  is  whis- 
pered that  Kaiser  Wilhelm's  hostility  to  Car- 
dinal Rampolla  helped  to  kill  the  latter's 
chances  in  the  last  conclave,  with  the  result 
that  Cardinal  Sarto  was  elected.  The  fact 
that  the  Kaiser  is  a  Protestant  makes  no  dif- 
ference; for  when  the  intriguers  at  the  Vat- 
ican seek  political  advantage,  they  do  not 
ask  inconvenient  questions  about  their  allies' 
religion.  So,  in  old  times,  it  was  believed  that 
they  would  not  shrink  from  a  league  with 
the  Turk  if  they  thought  he  could  help  them 
to  humble  a  refractory  Catholic  ruler. 

But  we  shall  fail  to  perceive  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  great  drama  unless  we  go  deeper. 
The  Catholic  Church,  beginning  as  a  relig- 


344  ITALY  IN   1907 

ious  institution,  gradually  grew  in  wealth 
and  power  and  took  on  political  functions. 
Then  it  became  incarnate  in  a  political 
State,  the  most  corrupt  and  worldly  of  all  the 
States  of  the  Renaissance.  The  conscience 
of  Christendom  revolted ;  the  Reformation  en- 
sued; the  Papacy,  still  political,  shorn  of  its 
splendor  and  influence,  barely  maintained 
itself  as  a  degenerate  principality.  Finally, 
the  march  of  progress  deprived  it  in  1870 
of  the  last  shred  of  temporal  power.  So  the 
very  stars  in  their  courses  have  been  fighting 
to  force  the  Church  back  to  religious  founda- 
tions, on  which  alone  its  existence  can  be 
justified.  But  the  political  motive,  the  love 
of  power,  and  the  worldliness,  which  are 
never  so  insistent  as  when  they  take  posses- 
sion of  ecclesiastics,  still  dominate  the  hier- 
archs,  many  of  whom  have  so  long  confounded 
the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  that  now  they 
cannot  distinguish  between  them,  and  so 

O  ' 

they  cry  out  that  the  Church  is  being  robbed, 
when  it  is  plain  that  she  is  simply  being 
relieved  of  a  political  impediment  to  her  re- 
ligious usefulness.  A  force  mightier  than 
pope  or  cardinal  or  the  Society  of  Jesus  has 
been  at  work  spiritualizing  the  Church :  this 


ITALY  IN   1907  345 

force  works  slowly,  too  slowly  for  the  zeal  of 
the  devout  who  have  a  vision  of  what  the 
Church,  purged  of  its  worldliness,  might 
achieve  towards  uplifting  the  multitudes  that 
turn  to  it  for  guidance.  Yet  this  devout  rem- 
nant, this  spiritual  residuum,  which  regards 
the  craving  for  temporalities  as  unholy 
and  the  political  intrigues  of  the  Vatican  as 
the  desperate  devices  of  men  whose  cause  is 
doomed,  may  prove  to  be  the  forerunners  of 
a  purified  Catholicism. 

In  any  case,  the  Italians  can  view  the  situ- 
ation with  equanimity.  The  reaction  in  the 
Vatican  surely  increases  the  number  of  those 
intelligent  Catholics  throughout  the  Penin- 
sula who  desire  to  see  the  Church  divorced 
from  worldly  politics,  and  who  resent  being 
subjected  on  the  religious  side  to  medieval 
intolerance.  The  Italians  have  had,  further- 
more, sufficient  proof  that  even  the  Jesuits 
dread  the  possible  triumph  of  the  Party  of 
Revolution  much  more  than  the  maintenance 
of  the  Monarchy.  Finally,  they  would  not  be 
human  if  they  failed  to  rejoice  at  the  fact 
that  the  embroiling  of  the  Vatican  with  their 
own  neighbors  both  weakens  the  Vatican  and 
tends  to  strengthen  the  friendship  of  these 


346  ITALY   IN   1907 

neighbors  for  Italy.  So  the  situation  at  the 
beginning  of  1907  is  more  propitious  than 
any  the  Italians  have  seen  since  the  death  of 
Cavour. 


GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 


GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 


GIOSUK  CARDUCCI  died  at  Bologna  on  Febru- 
ary 15, 1907,  after  an  illness  of  several  years, 
•which  had  latterly  almost  completely  dark- 
ened his  many-sided  and  brilliant  genius.  Since 
the  death  of  Tennyson  he  had  been  the  most 
eminent  lyric  poet  in  Europe  —  a  poet  still 
unduly  neglected  outside  of  his  own  country, 
too  robust  to  be  made  the  idol  of  a  fashion- 
able cult,  too  disdainful  and  too  exacting  to 
be  contented  with  troops  of  pliant  disciples. 
Carducci  was  born  July  27, 1835,  at  Valdi- 
castello,  Tuscany,  his  father  being  a  coun- 
try physician,  his  mother  a  Florentine  who 
could  trace  her  ancestry  back  to  a  gonfalo- 
niere  in  the  days  of  the  Republic.  The  boy 
passed  his  early  years  in  the  Maremma,  lead- 
ing a  wild  and  lonely  life,  with  a  pet  wolf  for 
a  companion.  When  his  parents  removed  to 
Florence,  he  studied  in  the  college  of  the 
Scolopian  Brothers.  He  seems  also  to  have 

1  The  Nation,  February  21,  1907. 


350  GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 

attended  the  University  at  Pisa  for  a  while, 
after  which  he  undertook  to  support  himself 
by  teaching  and  by  editing  the  Italian  class- 
ics for  Barbera.  He  soon  attracted  notice, 
and  Mamiani,  Minister  of  Education,  being 
impressed  by  his  ability,  appointed  him,  in 
1860,  professor  of  Italian  literature  in  the 
University  of  Bologna.  That  post  he  held 
for  over  forty  years,  until,  owing  to  failing 
health,  he  reluctantly  accepted  a  special  pen- 
sion from  the  Government.  Of  such  a  career 
the  real  events  are  the  intellectual  campaigns 
and  the  books,  the  ideas  sown  in  the  minds 
of  receptive  pupils,  the  slowly  broadening 
influence  and  the  ultimate  triumph. 

Never  was  there  a  professor  less  pedantic 
than  Carducci,  never  one  better  fitted  to  be 
the  interpreter  of  literature.  He  was  a  scholar 
of  the  best  German  type ;  one  who  pored  over 
texts  and  codices ;  who  was  familiar  with  all 
the  apparatus  of  the  philologian ;  a  tireless 
ransacker  for  the  last  fact,  the  elusive  final 
link,  to  complete  a  chain  of  evidence ;  an 
insatiable  reader ;  a  stickler  for  perfection  in 
line  and  word  and  comma.  Yet  all  this  was 
but  the  beginning.  His  pupils  in  the  class- 
room met  a  critic  of  sure  taste  and  contagious 


GIOSUE  CARDUCCI  351 

enthusiasm,  a  poet  whose  genius  etherealized 
his  stores  of  information,  and  who  dreaded 
lest  mere  erudition  should  become  "  a  funeral 
shroud."  Since  Schiller  taught  at  Jena  no 
such  poet  had  sat  in  a  professor's  chair ;  but 
Carducci  was,  what  Schiller  was  not,  a  pro- 
found and  careful  scholar  as  well  as  a  great 
poet. 

In  person  Carducci  was  short  and  in  later 
years  stout;  but  he  had  a  massive,  shapely 
head,  large  enough  for  a  man  of  heroic  size, 
very  impressive  with  its  wealth  of  hair  and 
beard,  and  most  noticeable  for  the  eyes,  which 
fastened  on  the  person  or  object  before  them 
as  if  they  would  literally  grasp  and  penetrate 
and  absorb.  Carducci  had  an  astonishing 
capacity  for  work  —  he  could  toil  eight  or 
ten  hours  at  a  stretch ;  he  could  even  take 
recreation  in  reading  proofs  for  an  hour,  and 
then  go  back  to  his  main  task.  He  cultivated 
his  naturally  strong  memory,  so  that  he  knew 
almost  all  of  Virgil  and  Horace,  Tibullus  and 
Catullus,  by  heart,  not  to  speak  of  Dante, 
Petrarch,  and  the  later  Italian  poets.  He  had 
a  thorough  acquaintance  with  French  litera- 
ture, and  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  Ger- 
man, although  over  the  alcove  containing  his 


352  GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 

German  books  he  put  the  sign,  "  IBarbari" 
— "The  Barbarians."  English,  also,  he  read 
fluently,  and  he  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer 
of  Shelley,  on  whom  he  wrote  a  brief  but 
penetrating  critique.  He  had  a  very  respons- 
ive nature — witness  that  story  of  his  burst- 
ing into  tears  after  Pascarella  read  him  some 
sonnets  on  Rome.  He  was  quick  and  some- 
times petulant,  but  forgiving  and  ready  to 
ask  forgiveness.  And  in  spite  of  the  immense 
respect  he  enjoyed  in  his  last  years,  he  seems 
to  have  kept  himself  unspoiled  by  either  fame 
or  flattery. 

ii 

In  his  professorship  Carducci  set  himself 
several  important  tasks.  First,  he  insisted  on 
scholarship ;  surface  impressions  of  books, 
dilettante  likes  and  dislikes,  would  not  do  for 
him.  Next,  he  laid  stress  on  taste,  the  culti- 
vation of  the  critical  faculty  through  ac- 
quaintance with  the  abiding  elements  in  lit- 
erature. Finally,  he  never  ceased  to  apply 
literature  to  life,  to  show  that  its  usefulness 
and  its  glory  depend  upon  its  power  to  repre- 
sent life  ;  that  it  shall  not  merely  reproduce, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  photographic  camera, 


GlOSUfc  CARDUCCI  353 

the  facts  visible  to  the  outward  eye,  but  em- 
body the  passions  and  hopes,  "  the  con- 
secration and  the  poet's  dream."  The  most 
scrupulous  of  artists  himself,  he  scorned  the 
formula  "  Art  for  art's  sake,"  behind  which 
lurk  now  the  vacuous  and  the  conventional, 
and  now  the  lubricious,  the  shameless,  and 
the  obscene.  He  applauded  Manzoni  for 
having  by  "  truth  "  renewed  the  literary  and 
civic  conscience  of  Italy.  "  And  since  truth" 
he  said,  "  conceived  under  all  its  aspects  by 
a  great  and  serene  intellect,  by  a  lofty  and 
pure  nature,  becomes  of  itself  ideality,  I  ap- 
plaud the  art  of  Alessandro  Manzoni  in  its 
wholeness  "  —  a  single  sentence  which  sums 
up  an  entire  creed. 

Carducci  as  a  professor  became  popular, 
but  not  through  condescension  or  the  shal- 
low, genial  arts  by  which  teachers  sometimes 
try  to  win  the  favor  of  their  classes.  He  was 
brusque :  he  tolerated  no  slackness  in  work,  no 
slipshod  behavior.  "  This  is  very  bad,"  was 
often  his  remark  in  handing  back  a  thesis : 
but  then  he  would  go  on  to  soften  the 
effect  of  his  condemnation  by  pointing  out 
the  better  way ;  and  he  rarely  failed  to  dis- 
cern real  merit  or  to  give  it  generous  encour- 


354  GlOSUfi  CARDUCCI 

agement.  So  the  flower  of  Italian  youth  went 
to  sit  under  him,  and  to  hear  not  only  what 
was  for  Italy  a  new  and  compelling  gospel 
of  literature  and  criticism,  but  fiery  outpour- 
ings on  manhood,  patriotism,  religion,  life. 
"  Let  not  the  weak,  the  anemic,  the  skep- 
tical, come  to  provoke  us,"  he  exclaimed  in 
an  address  to  the  students  of  Padua ;  "  let 
them  not  come  to  deprive  us  of  the  Ideal,  to 
deprive  us  of  God.  Recreants  !  The  Ideal  was 
so  stored  up  in  our  fathers'  souls  and  in  ours 
that,  merely  in  freeing  itself  and  confound- 
ing the  false  prophets,  it  revealed  a  people 
to  itself,  renewed  a  nation,  determined  the 
fate  of  an  historic  epoch.  The  God  of  love 
and  of  sacrifice,  the  God  of  life  and  of  the 
future,  the  God  of  the  people  and  of  human- 
ity, is  in  us,  with  us,  and  for  us." 

At  another  time  he  uttered  this  solemn 
appeal : 

"  Young  men  of  Italy,  your  fathers  and 
your  brothers  gave  their  soul  and  their  blood 
to  their  country :  you  give  your  talents.  A 
melancholy  rumor  is  abroad  —  and  even 
among  us  lips  but  not  hearts  repeat  it  —  that 
tells  of  the  decline  and  eclipse  of  the  Latin 
races.  Oh,  we  desire  neither  to  be  quenched 


GlOSUfc  CARDUCCI  355 

nor  to  rot !  Rally  in  your  hearts,  0  youth, 
the  constancy  and  the  glory  of  the  mighty 
sires  who  made  the  revolution  of  the  Com- 
munes and  the  Renaissance,  who  discovered 
new  continents  for  human  industry,  new  fields 
for  art,  new  methods  for  science.  Love  art 
and  science,  love  them  with  a  true  love : 
love  them  for  themselves,  much  more  than 
for  the  gains  they  may  bear  you,  much  more 
than  for  the  praise  they  may  procure  you : 
love  them  as  the  exercise  and  the  manifesta- 
tion in  which  the  nobility  of  man  is  most 
apparent,  in  which  the  worth  of  the  nations 
perpetuates  itself  forever.  Be  good  and  have 
faith  :  have  faith  in  love,  in  virtue,  in  justice : 
have  faith  in  the  high  destinies  of  the  human 
race,  which  mounts,  glorious,  along  the  ways 
of  its  ideal  transformation.  And  it  shall 
surely  come  to  pass  that  science  shall  fortify 
you,  that  art  shall  comfort  you,  that  your 
country  shall  bless  you." 

This  was  a  message  which  the  youth  of 
Italy  needed  to  hear  even  more  than  literary 
criticism.  No  wonder  that  Carducci  became 
their  leader  and  prophet ;  the  greater  wonder 
is,  seeing  how  seldom  the  miracle  is  performed 
in  academic  experience,  that  his  preaching 


356  GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 

in  nowise  interfered  with  his  scholarly  exac- 
tions. He  dared  to  rhapsodize  without  har- 
boring the  ignoble  fear  that  some  pedantic 
colleague  would  whisper  against  him  the 
damning  epithet  "  popular."  In  the  large 
sense  he  was  not  and  is  not  popular ;  but 
like  Matthew  Arnold  he  diffused  his  ideas 
through  a  body  of  sympathetic  pupils,  who 
in  turn  have  distributed  them  far  and  wide. 
During  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  he 
had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  no  line 
of  poetry  and  no  page  of  criticism  worthy  of 
attention  was  written  in  Italy  that  did  not 
bear  the  trace  of  his  influence.  Other  schools, 
other  movements,  other  fashions  have  come 
forward,  but  they  all  acknowledge  his  pre- 
sence, by  what  they  reject,  if  not  by  what 
they  adopt. 

in 

Carducci's  prose,  which  fills  ten  or  twelve 
volumes,  consists  first  of  formal  studies  in 
literary  criticism  —  such,  for  instance,  are  his 
work  on  "  The  Evolution  of  National  Litera- 
ture," the  study  of  the  Ode,  and  the  remark- 
able survey  of  the  literature  of  the  Risorgi- 
mento;  next,  there  are  essays,  half-critical, 


GlOSUfe  CARDUCCI  357 

half-biographical,  on  great  literary  figures  — 
Dante,  Muratori,  Metastasio,  Manzoni;  then 
there  are  commemorative  addresses ;  and, 
finally,  what  we  may  call  personal  confes- 
sions on  politics,  art,  criticism,  and  conduct, 
called  forth  by  inquiry  or  by  attack.  On  any 
scale,  Carducci  will  rank  among  the  few  mas- 
ter critics  of  the  age.  He  has  insight  as  well 
as  knowledge,  taste  as  well  as  comprehensive- 
ness. He  understands  not  only  the  historic 
position,  but  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  makers 
of  literature,  and  so  he  infallibly  reaches  the 
human  residue  in  every  author  and  in  every 
book.  Critics  who  stop  short  of  that  palm  off 
on  us  easy  formulas  of  heredity  and  environ- 
ment to  explain  the  mysteries  of  genius. 

In  nothing  does  Carducci's  generous  na- 
ture display  itself  more  attractively  than  in 
his  commemorative  eulogies.  He  has  the 
courage  of  his  enthusiasms,  and  his  pages 
glow  with  admiration  and  affection  for  Au- 
relio  Saffi  and  Goffredo  Mameli,  for  Garibaldi 
and  Manzoni  and  Victor  Hugo,  for  Leopardi 
and  Shelley,  for  Alberto  Mario  and  Maria 
Gozzadini.  His  rhapsody  on  Garibaldi  —  a 
gem  of  Romanticism  —  written  at  a  sitting, 
has  become  classic  in  Italy,  and  may  stand 


358  GlOSUfc  CARDUCCI 

as  a  model  of  that  sort  of  eloquence.  In  Eng- 
lish, our  growing  distrust  of  rhetoric  has  put 
such  flights  out  of  vogue.  Shelley  in  his 
"  Defence  of  Poetry "  is  perhaps  the  last 
Englishman  whose  sustained  achievement 
cannot  be  questioned,  although  Ruskin,  still 
later,  soared  sunward  in  many  a  magnificent 
passage ;  but  too  often  the  rhetorical  flyers 
have  only  the  wings  of  Icarus,  and  meet  his 
fate.  Carducci,  however,  just  because  he  was 
a  poet  and  an  Italian,  to  whom  it  was  natu- 
ral to  give  expression  to  burning  emotions  in 
burning  phrase,  made  even  his  prose  dithy- 
rambs genuine. 

His  personal  confessions,  though  frequently 
of  vital  importance  on  the  autobiographic 
side,  have  the  least  permanent  literary  inter- 
est. He  indulged  in  sarcasm  that  was  too 
subtle,  and  in  allusions  or  parallels  that  were 
too  remote.  More  than  once  —  as  when,  in 
1868,  he  hurled  scorn  at  those  who  wished 
to  banish  him  from  the  university  for  poli- 
tical reasons,  or  when,  in  1881,  he  replied  to 
the  critics  of  his  Levia  Grama — he  missed 
the  opportunity  of  matching  Shelley's  re- 
joinder to  Lord  Ellenborough  or  Mazzini's 
crushing  invective  against  De  Tocqueville 


GlOSUfc  CARDUCCI  369 

and  Falloux.  On  such  occasions  the  literary 
artificer  in  him  seemed  to  get  the  upper  hand : 
indeed,  although  he  had  a  strong  man's 
capacity  for  indignation  and  scorn,  he  spoke 
most  naturally  and  most  victoriously  when 
love,  friendship,  and  ideals  moved  him. 

IV 

But  great  as  he  is  as  prose  writer,  critic, 
and  leader,  it  is  as  poet  that  he  holds  the 
supreme  place  in  modern  Italy ;  it  is  as  poet 
that  his  fame  will  endure,  and  that  he  will 
become  more  than  a  name  outside  of  Italy. 
He  began  to  write  verse  at  the  age  of  eleven, 
and  during  his  boyhood  he  printed  fugitive 
pieces.  He  grew  up  in  the  fifties  in  the  hey- 
day of  Romanticism.  The  struggle  for  Italian 
independence,  borne  forward  on  the  great 
wave  of  Liberalism,  found  its  true  spokesmen 
among  the  Romanticists.  But  although  Car- 
ducci  was  fired  by  patriotism,  his  intellectual 
and  esthetic  elements  recoiled  from  Roman- 
ticism. He  devoured  the  masters  of  Latin 
literature,  studied  Latin  religion  and  history, 
and  reveled  in  the  Renaissance,  with  its  ap- 
parent reproduction  of  Paganism.  In  1858, 
together  with  other  young  enthusiasts,  he 


360  GlOSUfc  CARDUCCI 

edited  a  journal  which  they  called  II  Poll- 
ziano,  after  the  typical  Humanist,  and 
wished  to  be  the  vehicle  of  a  return  to 
Classicism.  Its  chief  result  was  Carducci 
himself.  His  poems,  inspired  more  and  more 
by  Pagan  or  Humanistic  ideals,  made  their 
way  slowly.  Not  until  1865,  when  he  pub- 
lished the  "Hymn  to  Satan,"  did  he  reach 
the  general  public.  The  "Hymn"  created 
a  scandal,  was  hotly  denounced,  and  generally 
misunderstood;  for  the  Satan  glorified  by 
Carducci  is  not  the  Principle  of  Evil,  but  a 
latter-day  Prometheus,  the  implacable  adver- 
sary of  sullen  and  joyless  creeds,  of  worn- 
out  deities,  and  of  corrupt  ecclesiasticism. 
Carducci  issued  in  1871  his  Levia  Grama 
which  marks  another  stage  in  his  progress 
towards  the  complete  repudiation  of  Ro- 
manticist form  and  of  Christian  substance. 
Finally,  in  1878,  he  brought  out  the  first 
series  of  Odi  Barbare,  in  which  he  attempted 
to  revolutionize  Italian  prosody.  Abandoning 
rhyme  and  the  traditional  metres  of  his  coun- 
try, he  imitated  the  verse-forms  of  Horace, 
taking  care  that  his  themes  should  be  treated 
from  the  Classic  point  of  view.  A  storm  of 
criticism  burst  upon  him.  It  was  easy  to 


CARDUCCI  361 

point  out  that  the  Latin,  with  its  more  solid 
word-units,  its  quantity,  and  its  inflections, 
is  a  very  different  metrical  instrument  from 
the  Italian,  with  its  more  plastic  word-units, 
its  accent,  and  its  looser  construction.  The 
battle  raged  for  many  years,  and  was  re- 
newed when  Carducci  flung  a  second  and 
third  series  of  Odi  Barbare  into  the  arena. 
It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  question  has 
been  settled  yet.  Few  foreigners,  certainly, 
find  pleasure  in  the  metrical  intricacies  of 
the  Odi,  and  no  Italians,  although  they 
have  been  trying  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
to  imitate  them,  have  succeeded  in  equal- 
ing Carducci.  If  we  may  hazard  a  tempo- 
rary verdict,  we  may  say  that  a  remarkable 
genius,  with  extraordinary  finesse  as  a  met- 
ricist,  achieved  a  success  which  proved  his 
genius,  but  not  his  theory.  The  poems  them- 
selves are  often  very  beautiful,  and  are  among 
the  most  precious  poetic  treasures  of  the  age  ; 
but  like  the  best  poems  of  Wordsworth's 
"  Lyrical  Ballads,"  the  world  accepts  them 
because  they  are  genuine  poetry,  and  not 
because  they  illustrate  a  new  doctrine  in 
prosody. 

As  to  the  content  of  Carducci's  poetry,  its 


362  GIOSUE  CARDUCCI 

Humanism,  Paganism,  Hellenism, — for  it  has 
each  of  these  qualities,  —  I  cannot  speak  at 
length  here.  It  is  a  fine  theme,  awaiting  the 
properly  equipped  critic.  Classicism,  or  "  the 
Classic  spirit,"  is  one  of  the  most  abused 
terms  in  literary  criticism.  It  is  applied  alike 
to  Keats's  "  Endymion,"  to  Landor's  "  Hel- 
lenics," and  to  Swinburne's  mongrel  Greek 
dramas.  In  the  case  of  Carducci  we  should 
ask  not  only,  "  Has  he  fumigated  his  mind 
of  all  Christian- Romanticist  instincts  and 
prepossessions? "  but  also,  "  Has  he  really 
attained  the  Pagan  outlook?  Can  a  man  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  by  whatever  con- 
scious effort  or  unconscious  affinity,  be  able 
to  see  life  as  Horace  or  Catullus  saw  it  —  no 
more,  no  less  —  unalloyed  by  the  least  hint 
of  the  tremendous  experience  which  eighteen 
hundred  years  have  graven  into  the  memory 
of  the  race?" 

To  understand  modern  Italy  one  must 
remember  the  four  historical  layers  which 
underlie  it.  First,  there  is  the  Italic,  or 
Pagan ;  next,  the  Medieval  Christian,  of 
which  Dante  is  the  consummate  represent- 
ative; third,  the  Renaissance;  and,  last,  the 
National-Patriotic.  You  can  usually  classify 


GIOSUE  CARDUCCI  363 

Italians  according  as  one  or  another  of  these 
strata  predominates.  The  singular  fact  about 
Carducci  is,  that,  although  he  voluntarily 
planted  himself  in  the  first,  he  could  not 
exile  himself  from  the  others.  Few  men  have 
ever  felt  more  powerfully  Dante's  spell;  few 
critics  have  ever  written  more  illuminatingly 
about  the  "  Divine  Comedy  "  and  the  Can- 
zoniere  than  the  Humanist  who  rejected  the 
religion  in  which  Dante  found  final  truth. 
Patriotism  was  for  Carducci  almost  a  religion, 
and  it  is  doubtless  the  many  patriotic  poems, 
some  of  them  magnificent  in  form  and  mess- 
age, which  have  endeared  him  to  masses  of 
his  countrymen  who  cared  little  about  tech- 
nical disputes  over  his  Odi  Barbare.  A 
fervent  disciple  of  Mazzini,  Carducci  clung 
to  his  early  Republican  ideals  until  long  after 
the  unification  of  Italy ;  then  he  accepted  the 
Monarchy,  and  consented  to  be  appointed 
a  Senator,  not  because  he  had  fallen  a  victim, 
as  some  irreconcilables  gossiped,  to  Court 
blandishments,  but  because  he  set  the  union 
and  independence  of  Italy  above  partisan 
claims,  and  saw  that,  for  the  present  at  least, 
it  is  the  Monarchy,  and  not  the  Republic, 
which  can  best  serve  Italy's  needs. 


364  GIOSUE  CARDUCC1 

Carducci  never  flattered  any  one ;  least  of 
all  would  he  have  flattered  those  in  power. 
He  spared  no  criticism  of  politics  or  education 
or  literature  or  social  standards.  He  scourged 
the  "  Byzantinism  "  of  his  countrymen,  who 
seemed  to  settle  back,  after  their  splendid 
achievement  of  unity,  into  a  self-complacent, 
materialistic  existence.  He  held  ever  before 
them  the  ideal  Italy,  for  which  they  must 
strive.  And  they  ended  by  admiring  him. 
He  brought  to  them  the  example  of  vigor, 
the  shining  gifts  of  genius,  the  daily  stimulus 
of  character.  As  professor  he  had  been 
neglected,  as  critic  derided,  as  poet  attacked 
—  yet  he  kept  on  his  way  unshaken.  Little 
by  little  he  saw  the  tide  turn,  and  he  lived  to 
be  honored  by  an  entire  nation.  The  Italians, 
obeying  a  wise  intuition,  would  place  him 
beside  Cavour  and  Mazzini,  Garibaldi  and 
Victor  Emmanuel:  first,  the  heroes  who  do, 
then  the  poet  who  immortalizes  their  heroic 
deeds.  Whatever  estimate  posterity  may  set 
on  Carducci's  works,  there  can  be  no  dispute 
as  to  his  life;  in  him  genius  and  character 
were  robustly  blended. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD 


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